Bio
Rongxin received his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology at UC San Diego, where he was mentored by Bing Ren (2015-2019). During this time, he developed high-throughput genomic technologies and computational tools to map the structure and activity of the mammalian genome at a large scale with single-cell resolution. He then applied these approaches to understand how cis-regulatory elements such as enhancers in the genome control gene expression and how this process can give rise to the distinct gene expression programs that underlie the cellular diversity in the mammalian brain. As an HHMI-Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow, he worked with Xiaowei Zhuang at Harvard University (2019-2024). There, he developed and applied genome-scale and volumetric 3D transcriptome imaging methods to map the molecular and cellular architecture of the mammalian brain during evolution and aging. He also participated in the collaboration with Adam Cohen and Catherine Dulac to combine transcriptome imaging with functional neuronal imaging to identify neuronal populations in the animal brain that underlie specific bran functions.