Lab members



Michael Z. Lin, MD PhD

Principal Investigator

Michael Z. Lin received an A.B. summa cum laude in Biochemistry from Harvard, an M.D. from UCLA, and a Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School. After training in biochemistry and neurobiology as a Ph.D. student with Michael Greenberg at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Lin performed postdoctoral research in fluorescent protein engineering with Chemistry Nobel Laureate Roger Y. Tsien at UCSD. Dr. Lin is a recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists, a Rita Allen Scholar Award, a Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award, and an NIH Pioneer Award. In his spare time, he tries to convince others of the merits of base 8. 

Follow Dr. Lin at twitter.com/michaelzlin

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Suguru Ueno

Visiting Scholar

Suguru received his Ph.D. from Faculty of Pharmaceutical sciences in University of Tokyo. For the past eleven years, he has developed antibody-drug conjugate and cell therapy in U3 Pharma in Germany and Daiichi Sankyo in Japan. In the Lin Lab, Suguru has interest in engineering proteins for rewire oncogenic signaling and bio-device interface.

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Chenzhou Hao

Postdoctoral Research Scientist


Chenzhou Hao received his Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry from Shenyang Pharmaceutical University in 2017, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Peking University. Dr. Hao was an assistant research fellow at the Shenzhen Bay Laboratory from 2021-2023. Dr. Hao joined the Lin Lab in 2023 as a basic life research scientist and is collaborating with team members to discover new generation of antiviral drugs. 

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Daesun Song
Postdoctoral Scholar


Daesun received Ph.D. in Chemistry from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in South Korea. As a graduate student, Daesun developed protein probes for studying protein oligomerization and Liquid-liquid phase separation in cells. Now, Daesun is engineering photoswitchable fluorescent protein for regulating the activity of target proteins.


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Mikkel Madsen
Postdoctoral Scholar


Mikkel is a biochemist by training and received his PhD from the Technical University of Denmark on complex coacervation between proteins and carbohydrates. From 2021-2023 he did a postdoc in enzyme technology with a focus on the molecular determinants in enzymes that degrade alginate. Mikkel has an interest in substrate recognition and is now working on discovery and design of broad spectrum antiviral peptidomimetics.


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Dongyun Jiang

Postdoctoral Scholar

Dongyun graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a PhD degree in Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Biosciences. She is currently a postdoc in the department of neurobiology. She is interested in understanding the molecular principles underlying cognition and how do they go awry in neuropsychiatric disorders.

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Sungmoo Lee

Postdoctoral Scholar

Sungmoo received his Ph.D. from Seoul National University / Department of Transdisciplinary Studies. Before joining the Lin lab, Sungmoo developed genetically encoded fluorescent biosensors from Dr. Bradley Baker's lab at KIST. In the Lin lab, Sungmoo will continue to develop and improve voltage indicators as well as apply the new sensors for questions in neuroscience studies. 

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Alex Yukun Hao

Graduate Student


Yukun graduated from Tsinghua University and used to work on applied math and physics. Currently, he is a graduate student in the Department of Bioengineering. He is devoted to the development of better genetically encoded voltage indicators and he would like to apply the indicators to study the multisensory integration of fruit flies. He is a believer in holism and emergentism.


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Xinzhi Zou

Graduate Student

Xinzhi earned her B.A. in Life Science from Tsinghua University. She is currently a graduate student in the Bioengineering Ph.D. program in Stanford.

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Julisia Chau

Graduate Student

Julisia graduated from UCSD with a degree in Chemistry and is currently a graduate student in the department of Chemistry. She is interested in engineering proteins to rewire oncogenic signaling.

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Yan Wu

Graduate Student

Yan received her B.S. from Tsinghua University. She is currently a graduate student in Stanford Bioengineering PhD program. Yan is now working on engineering Kinase-Modulated Bioluminescent Indicators (KiMBIs) to establish a generalizable approach to rapidly and non-invasively visualize the efficacy of kinase inhibitors in vivo.

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Pengli Wang

Graduate Student

Pengli got BEng in Biochemical Engineering from UCL and MSc in Biotechnology from ETH Zurich. He is currently a graduate student in the Chemical Engineering Ph.D. program at Stanford. Pengli is now working on red-shifting luciferase as biosensor to detect neurotransmitters in a non-invasive way.

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Lan Xiang Liu

Research Assistant

Lan graduated from Beijing Agricultural University. She is a life science research assistant in the laboratory. Outside of the lab, she loves hikng and cooking!

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Lab Alumni

Yufeng Zhao, postdoctoral scholar → Research officer at National Research Council Canada

Yichi Su, postdoctoral scholar → assistant professor at Fudan University (Shanghai)

Michael Westberg, postdoctoral scholar → assistant professor at Aarhus University (Denmark)

Stephen Wenceslao Evans, PhD student → founder at Boulder Creek Research Institute

Guofeng Zhang, postdoctoral scholar → neurosurgery resident at Sun Yatsen Hospital (Guangzhou)

Vandon Duong, master's student → PhD student with Crystal Mackall

Shawn Dhillon, rotation student → PhD student with Richard Lewis

Lin Ning, postdoctoral scholar → venture partner at Valkyrie Fund

Dong Li, life science research professional → life science research professional with Joe Wu

Mariya Chavarha, PhD student → scientist at Encodia Inc.

Namdoo Kim, postdoctoral scholar → assistant professor at Kongju University

Julia Park, life science research professional

Bongjae Benjamin Kim, PhD student → associate at Playground ventures

Garam Kim, rotation studentPhD student with Aaron Gitler

Emma Costa, rotation student → PhD student with Tony Wyss-Coray

Hokyung Kay Chung, PhD student → Damon Runyon postdoctoral fellow with Susan Kaech lab (Salk)

Bryce Bajar, research assistant → MD PhD student at UCLA

Yunwen Huo, life science research professional → diagnostics startup

Ying Yang, postdoctoral scholar → venture partner at Beijing ventures

Mengli Feng, undergraduate student → college student at Peking University

Muziyue Wu, undergraduate student → PhD student at UCSF

Cory Pan, high school student → college student at Rice University

Julianne Catherine Kim, high school student → college student at Columbia

Ryan Badiee, undergraduate student → MD student at UCSF

Conor Jacobs, PhD student 

Xin Zhou, PhD student → postdoctoral fellow in James Wells lab (UCSF) → assistant professor at Harvard Medical School

Lagnajeet Pradhan, postdoctoral scholar → scientist at Orca Bio

Julia Cho, high school student → college student at MIT

Younghee Oh, postdoctoral scholar → scientist at Korea national forensic laboratory

Yang Geng, postdoctoral scholar → staff scientist at Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry

Francois St-Pierre, postdoctoral scholar → assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University

Michael Pan, research assistant → MD student at Northwestern

Jun Chu, postdoctoral scholar → assistant professor at Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology

Amy Lam, PhD student → investment fellow at Life Science Angels

Yoon Seok Kim, rotation student → PhD student with Brian Kobilka and Karl Deisseroth

Yong Tang, rotation student → PhD student with Ellen Yeh

David Wang, rotation student → PhD student with Liqun Luo

Emily S. Wang, high school student → college student at Harvard

Linlin Fan, research assistant → PhD student at Harvard

Jacqueline Jialin Tao, undergraduate student → MD student at Stanford

Hyokeun Park, postdoctoral scholar → associate professor at HKUST

Jihye Seong, postdoctoral scholar → principal investigator at KIST

Amanda Miguel, rotation student → PhD student with Russ Altman

Xiaozhe Ding, undergraduate student → PhD student at Caltech

Aditya Nandy, high school student → undergraduate student at UC Berkeley

Jessica Hsu, undergraduate student medical student at U Pittsburgh

Austin Lee-Richerson, graduate student → management consultant at BCG

William Chen, undergraduate student MD student at Yale

Margaret Butko, postdoctoral scholar  scientist at Genentech

Chi Zhang, undergraduate student PhD student at MIT

Arielle Yablonovitch, rotation student → PhD student with Jin Billy Lee

Fon Kanokwan, undergraduate student

Prae Numswangneth, undergraduate student OSISoft Asia

Veronica Rangel Alarcon, research assistant PhD student at Stanford

Alexandar Reinaldo Perez, undergraduate student MD PhD student at Weill Cornell - Rockefeller - Sloan Kettering

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