Di’s research focus is driven by his interest in developing and extending novel CRISPR methodologies to study important biological questions. His skills position him well to drive genome engineering innovation in our gene editing arm of GIH.
Researcher biography
Di obtained his Bachelor Degree in Biological Sciences from the Zhejiang University, one of the top ranked higher education institutions in China, and then worked as a research assistant in China for 3 years before moving to Australia to pursue a Master of Neuroscience at Queensland Brain Institute, UQ. Following his Master’s degree, he then went on to successfully complete a PhD at QBI in 2016, with a research focus on Alzheimer disease.
Di has over 12 years laboratory experience in molecular and cellular biology, most recently exploiting various genome engineering approaches to create an array of cell lines and animal models. During his PhD, he successfully introduced both TALEN and CRISPR genome engineering techniques into his research laboratory, generating both in vitro and in vivo models of Alzheimer disease, and resulting in several first author and co-author papers. After finishing his PhD, Di joined the laboratory of Dr Nathan Palpant (IMB, UQ), first as a Research Assistant and then moving on to become the founding member and then Facility Manager of the Queensland Facility of Advanced Engineering (QFAGE), a facility stemming from the research instituted by Di and other members of the Palpant research team at IMB. Di was instrumental in building the genome engineering capabilities available at QFAGE. He developed all workflows and refined the cell engineering SOPs for every CRISPR cell line service offered by the facility at that time.
Di joined the GIH team in 2019 and since then he has played an integral role in GIH's genetic engineering and CRISPR collaborative research projects.
Featured projects | Duration |
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Precise genome editing Genome Innovation Hub Collaborative Project (UQ infrastructure) |
2019 |
Using transposon-sequencing to probe whole cell protein-protein interactions Genome Innovation Hub Collaborative Project (UQ infrastructure) |
2019 |
Automated single cell quantitative in situ gene expression in cells and tissues (AutoMerFISH) Genome Innovation Hub Collaborative Project (UQ infrastructure) |
2019 |
OmniCRISPR: a simultaneous and combinatorial approach to the generation of multiple precise genomic alterations Genome Innovation Hub Collaborative Project (UQ infrastructure) |
2020 |
Dual gRNA screen Genome Innovation Hub Collaborative Project (UQ infrastructure) |
2019 |
Expanding the scope of multimodal single cell sequencing Genome Innovation Hub Collaborative Project (UQ infrastructure) |
2021 |
HTS single cell CRISPR technology for experimental validation of population genetics and functional genomics discovery Genome Innovation Hub Collaborative Project (UQ infrastructure) |
2021 |
Using nanopore sequencing to test mRNA vaccine quality. Genome Innovation Hub Collaborative Project (UQ infrastructure) |
2022 |
Identification and exploitation of genome landing pads for cattle. Genome Innovation Hub Collaborative Project (UQ infrastructure) |
2022 |