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Junyue Cao

Grand Prize Winner 

From: Hebei, China
Category: Genomics, Proteomics, and Systems Biology
Title of essay:Tracking development at the cellular level: Single cell genomic methods enable developmental mapping of entire organisms

Biography

Originally from Hebei, China, Cao received his bachelor’s degree in Biology from Peking University. Cao earned his PhD in Genome Sciences from University of Washington and graduated within less than four years in 2019. Through his graduate study, he worked in Jay Shendure’s lab to develop novel high-throughput single cell genomic techniques. Leveraging on these methods, he profiled millions of single cell transcriptomes from entire organisms, in species including the worm, mouse and human. By quantifying the dynamics of mammalian embryonic development at single cell resolution, he was able to map out the global genetic programs that control cell proliferation and differentiation at the whole organism scale. Cao is currently an assistant professor at the Rockefeller University, studying how a cell population in our body maintains homeostasis by developing novel genomic techniques to profile and perturb cell dynamics at single-cell resolution. Outside of the lab, he enjoys reading, cooking and spending time with his two kids. 

Synopsis

My dissertation involved developing novel high-throughput single cell genomic techniques. Leveraging these techniques, I profiled millions of single cell transcriptomes from entire organisms, in species including the worm, mouse and human. By quantifying the dynamics of embryonic development at single cell resolution, I was able to map out the global genetic programs that control cell proliferation and differentiation at the whole organism scale.