Dr. Li obtained his Medical Doctor’s degree from the Third Military Medical University in 1984 and PhD degree from Sun Yet-Sun University in 1993. He had his post-doctoral training in Depart of Pathology, University of Florida (1999-2001) and Department of Immunology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) (2001-2004). Dr. Li joined the faculty of UTSW in 2004 and now is an Associate professor of Department of Immunology and Internal Medicine of UTSW. He served as the co-director of the Microarray and Genomics Core facility in UTSW since 2004. His main research focuses are the genetics and molecular mechanisms on autoimmunity and autoimmune diseases. He has published over 100 peer reviewed research articles and reviews.
As an early pioneer in the high-throughput synthesis and sequencing of DNA, Dr. Leproust is disrupting the process of gene synthesis to enable the exponential growth of synthetic biology applications in multiple fields including medicine, DNA data storage, agricultural biology, and industrial chemicals. In 2015, she was named one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers for fast-tracking the building blocks of life, and Fast Company named her one of the most creative people in business for synthesizing DNA faster than ever. Prior to Twist Bioscience, she held escalating positions at Agilent Technologies where she architected the successful SureSelect product line that lowered the cost of sequencing and elucidated mechanisms responsible for dozens of Mendelian diseases. She also developed the Oligo Library Synthesis technology, where she initiated and led product and business development activities for the team. Dr. Leproust designed and developed multiple commercial synthesis platforms to streamline microarray manufacturing and fabrication. Prior to Agilent, she worked with Dr. X. Gao at the University of Houston developing DNA and RNA parallel synthesis processes on solid support, a project developed commercially by Xeotron Corporation. Dr. Leproust has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers—many on applications of synthetic DNA, and is the author of numerous patents. She earned her Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Houston and her M.Sc. in industrial chemistry from the Lyon School of Industrial Chemistry in France.
Yongwei serves as Group VP of BGI-Shenzhen (华大集团副总裁), one of world’s largest genomics service companies. He is also CEO of BGI Americas Region and leads BGI’s COVID-19 related businesses in Americas. Dr. Zhang has over 20 years of experience in optics-based instruments and systems. Prior to BGI, he worked in various high tech startups in Bay Area including one he co-founded. Dr. Zhang received his B. Eng in Precision Instruments and B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from Tsinghua University in Beijing, M.S. in Computer Sciences, M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD.
Dr. Liben Chen is an Associate Research Scientist at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. Dr. Chen received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Huazhong Agricultural University in 2005 and obtained his Ph.D. degree from China Agricultural University in 2010. Prior to Johns Hopkins University, he worked at the Beijing Center for Animal Disease Control and Prevention, where his primary work was to develop rapid diagnostic tools for animal infectious diseases. In 2015, Dr. Chen joined the research faculty of Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, where his research focuses on developing technology platforms for fast diagnosis of bacterial and viral infections.
