Dr Taiji Mizoguchi is currently an In Vivo Biology Senior Scientist at Verve Therapeutics. He earned his MD from Kobe University School of Medicine and completed his clinical practice in internal medicine and cardiovascular medicine at Hyogo Prefectural Awaji Medical Center in Japan. He earned his PhD from Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, investigating the effect of peripheral immune tolerance on atherogenesis using preclinical animal models. As a postdoctoral fellow from 2018-2020, Taiji trained at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard under the mentorship of Dr Sekar Kathiresan and Dr Patrick Ellinor, focused on ADAMTS7 and human gene variants related to risk for coronary artery disease. Following his passion to develop new treatments for cardiovascular disease, Taiji joined the team at Verve Therapeutics to apply CRISPR gene editing as translational therapy.

Dr Qingquan Zhang is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego under the supervision of Dr Neil Chi. He earned his BS in Biology at Anhui Normal University (2010) followed by an PhD in Medicine (2016) at Tongji University. Then he joined the Neil Chi’s Lab in 2019. Dr Zhang’s major research interests focus on cardiac development and regeneration. He is currently applying scRNA-seq and lineage tracing to explore the development trajectory of cardiac cells and to understand how different cardiac cells are specialized to build a heart.

Dr Daniel Carlin graduated from Duke University with degrees in Mathematics and Biomedical Engineering in 2007, then received his PhD. in Bioinformatics from the University of California- Santa Cruz in 2014 under Dr Joshua Stuart, and was a postdoctoral scholar at University of California- San Diego under Dr Trey Ideker. His research is in the computational systems biology of cancer, stem cells, and cardiac development, by integrating mutational, transcriptional and proteomics data layers with the use of molecular networks and machine learning. He is always interested in deploying the newest computational techniques in the service of scientific insight.

Dr Juan Huang earned her PhD at Chinese University of Hong Kong under the supervision of Dr Yu Huang in 2020. She is interested in identifying new mechanisms underlying vascular calcification, atherosclerosis and cardiac diseases and developing novel therapeutics. She loves cardiovascular science and believes close collaboration with clinical researchers will effectively bridge the gap between scientific discovery and clinical application. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Dr Li Wang’s laboratory at Fuwai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. In her leisure time, she plays with her 4-year-old son and husband and enjoys traveling and learning about other cultures.

Ms Yujie Pu is a second year PhD student under the supervision of Dr Yu Huang at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and anticipates completing her PhD study in mid-2022. She earned her BS from Henan University and her MS from Zhejiang University. She has devoted herself to exploring new therapeutic targets for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases such as vascular calcification, atherosclerosis and hypertension. Her current research primarily focuses on better understanding of the regulatory roles of endothelial PPARs in maintenance of vascular hemostasis. She enjoys jogging along the Tolo harbor near CUHK for relaxing and thinking.

Mailin-Christin Manke earned her BS in Molecular Life Science at the University of Lübeck before moving to Tübingen where she graduated with a MS in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies. Mailin is now a PhD candidate in the lab of Dr Oliver Borst at the Institute of Cardiology and Angiology, University Hospital of Tübingen. As part of her PhD thesis she is working on different regulators of platelet function and their impact on arterial thrombosis in vitro and in vivo. She always tries to achieve new heights, not only at work, but also while climbing or biking,