School of Engineering
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
BS: Nanjing University, Physics
Licence 3: École Normale Supérieure de Paris, Physics
PhD: École Normale Supérieure de Paris, Biophysics
Postdoc: Caltech, Biology and Bioengineering
NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (2022)
Hellman Fellow (2024)
Shu Chien Early Career Award (2025)
Hypothesis Fund Grantee (2026)
Research
RNA biology and engineering, emerging from basic single-cell research to tool developments for nucleic-acid based therapies, all at the single molecule level. Cellular behavior depends on the activities of countless individual biomolecules. Compared to population-based methods, the ability to simultaneously perturb and analyze individual molecules provides a more direct and quantitative understanding, and unprecedented insights, of how these molecules function. Our interdisciplinary lab integrates diverse approaches (from molecular biology to deep learning, from time-lapse movies to magnetic tweezers, from high-resolution imaging to mammalian cell engineering, from photonics to integrated electronic circuits) and to develop more sensitive and powerful single molecule tools, for probing fundamental biological questions and for biomedical applications.
Recent Publications
- Dror I#, Chitiashvili T#, Sahakyan A#, Tan S, Cano C, Sahakyan A, Chronis C, Collier A, Deng W, Liang G, Sun Y, Afasizheva A, Miller J, Xiao W, Black D, Ding F and Plath K, XIST controls X chromosome dampening and autosomal genes in early human development, Cell, (2024) 187 (1), 110-129.
- Liu Z, Nguyen T, and Ding F, A User-Friendly Temperature Control System to Support Microscope, Microfluidic Chambers, and Custom Incubators, STAR Protocols (2024) 5 (1), 102862.
- Liang G#, Yin H# and Ding F, Technical Advances and Applications of Spatial Transcriptomics, GEN Biotechnology (2023) 2 (5), 384-398.
- Liang G#, Yin H# and Ding F, Cost-efficient boundary-free surface patterning achieves high effective-throughput of time-lapse microscopy experiments, PLOS ONE (2022) 17(10): e0275804.
- Ding F*, Cocco, S, Raj S, Manosas M, Nguyen T, Spiering MM, Benkovic SJ, Bensimon D, Allemand JF, Croquette V*, Displacement and dissociation of oligonucleotides during DNA hairpin closure under strain, Nucleic Acid Research (2022) doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkac1113, (* co-corresponding author)
- Ding F*, Su C, Chow KK, Liang G, Elowitz M*, Dynamics and functional roles of splicing factor autoregulation, Cell Reports (2022) 39(12):110985.
- Ding F, Elowitz M, Constitutive splicing and economies of scale in gene expression, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (2019), 26, 424–432.
- Ding F, Manosas M, Spiering MM, Benkovic SJ, Bensimon D, Allemand JF, Croquette V, Single-molecule mechanical identification and sequencing, Nature Methods, (2012) 9(4), 367-372. (News and Views: S Linnarsson, Nature Methods)