Welcome to Wei Li lab

Lab News

  • 2025.12 Rhema was accepted by Johns Hopkins! Congratulations!
  • 2025.12 Our most recent paper on multi-omics and network analysis on neutrophil differentiation has been accepted by Genome Biology. Congratulations to all the authors and collaborators (especially Qing Chen, Minglei Shi, Cheng Li)!
  • 2025.11 Pamela Chansky successfully defended her PhD! Congratulations!!!
  • 2025.10 We successfully organized the first Cold Spring Harbor Asia (CSHA) CRISPR course (together with Baoxu Pang and Qiang Wu). Vipin served as a wonderful TA!
  • 2025.7 Many interns joined our lab: Diana Zhu (UMD), Bharath Kumar (UMBC), Ethan Teng (Urbana High School), Rhema Du (Winston Churchill High School). Welcome!
  • 2025.7 Our single-cell brain tumor analysis grant was funded by Gilbert Family Foundation. PI: Dr. Yuan Zhu (UTSW), Wei Li (UM), Petr Baranov (Harvard)
  • 2025.6 Yangqi Su joined our lab as a computational postdoc. Welcome Yangqi!
  • 2025.4 Our lab moved to University of Maryland School of Medicine and Universtity of Maryland-Institute for Health Computing (IHC)!
  • 2025.4 Our review manuscript was accepted by Frontiers in Genome Editing. Congratulations to Vipin and other authors!
  • 2025.2 Our PS paper is online at Nature Cell Biology, together with Rahul Satija’s Mixscale paper. Congratulations to all the authors!
  • 2025.1 Welcome Xiangyun Li, the new technician working at Gene Editing Core!
  • 2025.1 Welcome Ishnoor Bakshi, Diksha Siriam, Muskan Manchanda, Sanya Palawat (GW Undergraduate) to team up for GWU AMPC Research Symposium!
  • 2025.1 Zach Eliason started his rotation. Welcome Zach!
  • 2025.1 We received a pilot award from District of Columbia Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (DC-IDDRC) together with Dr. Irene Zohn (Children’s National).
  • 2024.10 Wei served as a referee of 2025 Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS) competition.
  • 2024.10 We had a lab dinner together to celebrate all the achievements we have so far.
  • 2024.9 Jane Ulianova started her rotation in our lab. Welcome Jane!
  • 2024.8 Our PS model manuscript is accepted by Nature Cell Biology. Congratulations to Bicna, Xiaolong, Lumen, and all other coauthors!
  • 2024.7 Wei gave an invited talk at ELLIS (European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligence Systems) virtual workshop.
  • 2024.6 Diana Zhu joined as an undergrad intern. Welcome!
  • 2024.6 Vipin Menon joined our lab as a computational postdoc. Welcome Vipin!
  • 2024.6 Wei was promoted to associate professor (with tenure) at Children’s National and GWU, effective on July 1st, 2024 🙂
  • 2024.5 Welcome to the world! Bicna had a new baby:)
  • 2024.4 Wei joined the Editorial Board of PLoS Computational Biology as an academic editor.
  • 2024.4 Pamela, Lumen and Wei attended ASGCT (American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy) annual meeting at Baltimore MD. Pamela presented her poster on VAE model at the meeting, and Wei gave a talk on our recent Cas13 work.
  • 2024.4 Wei gave a talk at STATGEN 2024 meeting at Pittsburg, PA.
  • 2024.3 Aravind Meyyappan joined our lab as a rotating GWU IBS Ph.D. student. Welcome Aravind!
  • 2024.1 We received VT-CNH Research Collaboration Award on AI, a joint effort with Dr. Jia-Ray Yu (from Virginia Tech).
  • 2024.1 Wei became an adjunct faculty of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech (VT). 
  • 2023.11 Our PS model manuscript for analyzing single-cell perturbation data (e.g., Perturb-seq) is out at bioRxiv. Look forward to continue these great collaborations with many laboratories around the world!
  • 2023.10 Our Nature Methods News&Views and Nature Biomedical Engineering papers are online.
  • 2023.9 Our collaboration paper on NELFB function is published in JBC. Congratulations to Xiaolong and Rong Li lab members!
  • 2023.8 We joined IGVF consortium as an affiliate member.
  • 2023.8 Our News & Views commentary is accepted by Nature Methods. Congratulations to Bicna!
  • 2023.7 We launched gene editing core to serve Children’s National and the local DMV community.
  • 2023.7 We had lunch together to say farewell to Xiaolong and to celebrate Xiaolong’s new journey. See you later Xiaolong!
  • 2023.6 We received DC-CFAR Transitioning Investigator Award to study the mechanisms of novel drug targets in reversing HIV latency.
  • 2023.5 Our Cas13 intrinsic RNA targeting manuscript is accepted by Nature Biomedical Engineering. Congratulations to our wonderful lab members (Xiaolong, Lumen) and great collaborators (Teng Fei, Zexu Li, Zihan Li and other Fei lab members)!
  • 2023.4 Daniall Masood (IBS rotation student) and Li-Ting Wang (BMM master student) joined our lab. Welcome Daniall and Li-Ting!
  • 2023.4 The R01 proposal with Hanrui Zhang (Columbia University) and Edoardo Marcora (Mount Sinai) was awarded by NHLBL (R01HL168174). Look forward to having more exciting science!
  • 2023.2 Our DeepCas13 paper is published in Nature Communications online.
  • 2023.2 Congratulations to Pamela Chansky on receiving the Cosmos Club Foundation Scholars Awards!
  • 2022.12 Our collaboration paper on macrophage CRISPR screens is accepted by Nature Communications. Congratulations to our collaborators (Hanrui Zhang, Columbia University)!
  • 2022.11 Our DeepCas13 manuscript is accepted by Nature Communications! Congratulations to the team (esp. Xiaolong Cheng) and our great collaborators, Teng Fei (and Zexu Li)!
  • 2022.10 Our STM HIV CRISPR screening paper is online.
  • 2022.8 Junyan (Jeremy) Wu and Quan Yuan, two master students from GWU Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, joined us. Welcome Jeremy and Quan!
  • 2022.7 Our collaboration paper on latent HIV CRISPR screens is accepted by Science Translational Medicine. Congratulations to the team (esp. Bicna Song) and our great collaborators at Robert Siliciano lab (Johns Hopkins University)!
  • 2022.6 Pamela Chansky joined us as a Ph.D. student. Welcome (again) Pamela!
  • 2022.5 Our collaboration manuscript (with Teng Fei group, Northeastern University, China) on intrinsic Cas13 targets is online at bioRxiv. Great work to the team in our lab and the collaborator lab!
  • 2022.3 Our lab is moving to the new Children’s National Research and Innovation Campus (CNRIC)!
  • 2022.2 Our collaboration paper (with Dr. Yarui Diao lab at Duke University) is published in Molecular Cell. Congratulations to our lab alumni Ruocheng Shan!
  • 2022.2 The high-content CRISPR screening review paper is online at Nature Reviews Methods Primers. Congratulations to Bicna and our great collaborator team!
  • 2022.1 Daniel Zheng and Rod Rahmjoo joined as interns. Welcome!
  • 2022.1 The collaboration paper (with X. Shirley Liu, Myles Brown and Kexin Xu) on EZH2 inhibitor is published in PNAS.
  • 2021.12 The review manuscript of CRISPR screening (working with Christopher Bock and many other groups around the world) was accepted in Nature Reviews Methods Primers. Congratulations!
  • 2021.9 The collaboration paper (with X. Shirley Liu group) on in vivo CRISPR screens is published in Cell. Great work to the entire Liu lab team!
  • 2021.9 We enjoyed our happy hour in person, after 18 months!
  • 2021.9 Our DeepCas13 manuscript preprint is now online at bioRxiv with companion website DeepCas13. Great work to the team and the collaborators (Prof. Teng Fei)!
  • 2021.5 Congratulations to the three GWU master students who will go to the PhD programs this fall: Yuan Gao (U Maryland), Ruocheng Shan (GWU) and Wei Shao (UCI)!
  • 2021.4 Our lab received a second round of support from COVID-19 HPC Consortium to identify potential drug targets of SARS-COV-2.
  • 2021.2 We received a pilot grant from our center for Genetic Medicine Research to study Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) using CRISPR screens! This is going to be a collaboration project with Dr. Nino Gustavo and Dr. Jyoti Jaiswal within Children’s National.
  • 2021.2 Our collaboration paper with Teng Fei lab on SARS-COV-2 drug repurposing is accepted by iScience. Congratulations to Xiaolong, Qing, Zexu and Teng!

Not-that-new News (before 2021)