Saltiel Life Sciences Symposium 2025: Speaker Bios and Poster Session

Omar Abudayyeh is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, an investigator at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Mass General Brigham’s Gene and Cell Therapy Institute, an associate member of the Broad Institute, and faculty member with the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. He directs the Abudayyeh-Gootenberg lab, which is developing next-generation gene editing, gene delivery and synthetic biology technologies using protein engineering and artificial intelligence and applies them towards new therapeutics and the study of aging. He previously was a McGovern Fellow at MIT, where he directed his own research group. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School and MIT, where he researched novel CRISPR enzymes for genome editing, therapeutics and diagnostics. He is a pioneer in the gene editing and AI bio fields as an inventor on dozens of patents and patent applications relating to gene editing, therapeutic, and diagnostic innovations. He is also co-founder of Sherlock Biosciences, Proof Diagnostics (acquired) and Tome Biosciences, which are commercializing CRISPR-based diagnostics and therapeutics, as well as other stealth starts ups in the gene and RNA therapy space, which have collectively raised hundreds of millions. He has been recognized as Technology Review Innovators Under 35, Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst, Endpoints 20 under 40 Next Generation of Biotech Leaders, 2022 Termeer Scholar, 2018 Forbes 30 under 30, Business Insider 30 under 30, a 2018 TEDMED Hive honoree, and a 2013 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. 

Cliff Brangwynne is the June K. Wu ‘92 Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and the founding director of the Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute. He obtained a B.S. in materials science from Carnegie Mellon University and Ph.D. in applied physics in from Harvard University. He was a visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden and was a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden. Since 2011 he has been a faculty member in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University. His primary research interests are in biological self-assembly, particularly in the role of intracellular liquid-liquid phase separation. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Searle Scholar Award, MacArthur Fellowship, Wiley Prize, HFSP Nakasone Award, and Breakthrough Prize.

Just Crocker is a group leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), where his lab aims to understand the fundamental principles driving development to allow for programming and predictive control of cell fates. He earned his Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology from Dartmouth College and then completed his postdoctoral research at Princeton University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Research Campus.

Danwei Huangfu is a member and professor in the Developmental Biology Program at Sloan Kettering Institute of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University. She received her B.S. in genetics from Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Cornell University Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences. She subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship with  Douglas Melton at Harvard University. In September 2010, she joined Sloan Kettering Institute of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as an Assistant Member. The Huangfu lab is interested in human developmental genetics and stem cell biology. The lab applies precision genetics and genetic screening approaches in human pluripotent stem cells, including both embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells, to understand both conserved and non-conserved aspects of human development and disease mechanisms. 

Pulin Li is a Whitehead Institute Member and an assistant professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned a bachelor’s degree in life sciences from Peking University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Biology at Harvard University in the lab of Leonard Zon. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Michael B. Elowitz at the California Institute of Technology. Her lab studies how molecules and cells create tissue-scale patterns, as well as how these patterns regulate tissue form and function.

Michael Z. Lin is currently a professor of neurobiology and bioengineering at Stanford University. He received an A.B. summa cum laude in biochemistry (Harvard). After Ph.D. training in biochemistry and neurobiology with Michael Greenberg at Harvard Medical School, he received his M.D. from UCLA, then performed postdoctoral research in protein engineering with Chemistry Nobel Laureate Roger Y. Tsien at UCSD. He 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.

Changyang Linghu is an assistant professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Michigan Neuroscience Institute at the University of Michigan. He obtained his bachelor's degree in engineering ring from Tsinghua University and received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology working with Ed Boyden. He is the recipient of the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, MIT Technology Review's Global 35 Innovators Under 35 (TR35), Glenn and AFAR Junior Faculty Grant and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Collaborative Pairs Pilot Project Award, among other recognitions. His research focuses on technology development for scalable and multiplexable interrogation of cell physiology.

Leonardo Morsut is an assistant professor of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the University of Southern California. He earned a Ph.D. from Padova University, where he identified roles of YAP/TAZ in mechanotransduction. He then completed his postdoctoral research at the University of California San Francisco, where he developed synthetic Notch receptors for applications in CAR-T cell therapies. In his lab at USC, trainees develop and use synthetic biology tools to control patterning, morphogenesis and functional differentiation of in vitro grown tissues.

James Nuñez is an assistant professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley and an investigator of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub – San Francisco. His lab innovates CRISPR technologies for perturbing the human epigenome and dissects fundamental pathways underlying epigenetic regulation using functional genomics, biochemistry and cell biology approaches. He completed postdoctoral training with Jonathan Weissman (UCSF) and Ph.D. training with Jennifer Doudna (UC Berkeley). He has been named a Hanna Gray Fellow of HHMI, a Pew Biomedical Scholar and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow.

Jared Toettcher is an associate professor of molecular biology and the deputy director of the Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute at Princeton University. He obtained a Ph.D. from MIT working with Bruce Tidor (MIT) and Galit Lahav (Harvard Medical School) and was a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF with Wendell Lim and Orion Weiner. He has been named a 2016 NIH New Innovator, a 2019 Vallee Scholar and a 2024 Allen Distinguished Investigator and was awarded a 2018 NSF CAREER Award.

Li Ye is a professor, the Abide-Vividion Chair in Chemical Biology and an HHMI Investigator in the Department of Neuroscience at the Scripps Research Institute. He received his B.S. from Tsinghua University andd his Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School, followed by a postdoc at Stanford University. he joined Scripps Research in 2018 as an assistant professor and was promoted to full professor with tenure in 2023. He has received multiple awards, including Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Ben Barres Award, among others. The Ye lab combines neuroscience, molecular metabolism and chemical biology to understand the nervous systems and somatic tissues as an integrated network while focusing on the energetics as a fundamental mechanism underlying their relationship and interactions in normal physiology and disease conditions.