After graduating from Jiangxi Medical College in China, I went to USA to continue scientific education and obtained a PhD from the Department of Molecular Genetics at The Ohio State University, with a dissertation focused on the development of rAAV- and rAdenoviral vectors for gene therapy. I continued my training at Ohio State with a postdoctoral fellowship studying molecular, cellular and tumor immunology. Subsequently, I took a research position at the Dr. Caligiuri’s lab in the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Ohio State, and with my research, focused on the manipulation of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) and natural killer cells (NKs) in small animal models. This research led to the development of a novel vaccine against the EBV-associated post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLD). In 2011, I joined the Solid Tumor Translational Science Shared Resource as a senior research associate and lab manager and have been instrumental in establishing the STTS laboratory and the standard procedure for the purification of RNA, DNA and protein from a variety of clinical specimens. In addition to overseeing the day-to-day operations of the lab and specimen handling, my efforts include: the development and implementation of novel biomarker assays, development of methods for next-generation sequencing library preparation, mRNA and miRNA in situ hybridization and the analysis of mutations in circulating tumor DNA purified from patient plasma samples. In 2020, as a research scientist, I joined the Dr. Segal’s lab to start the Neuro-immunology study.
