Kevin spent his PhD engineering protein complexes that enable precision genome editing in living cells. These technologies have the potential to uncover genetic variants of disease and eventually be used to treat the disease through directly editing the pathogenic mutation.
As a Schmidt Science fellow, Kevin will be working in the lab of Professor Caixia Gao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to generate a high-throughput screening platform that links genetic variations to phenotypic traits of interest. Specifically, he hopes to link genetic perturbations to functional outputs to identify desirable traits in agriculture such as increased drought resistance, improved increased yields, and disease resistance.
Kevin hopes that using high-throughput genetic approaches will enable more sustainable approaches to agriculture that minimize harmful impacts to the climate while ensuring sufficient food for a growing global population.