Jingheng Chen
Jingheng’s mosquito research journey began during his master’s studies at Imperial College London, where he investigated Anopheles Gambiae gene drives in the Windbichler lab. This experience sparked his deep interest in entomology and gene editing. After earning his degree, he returned to China and joined the Champer Lab at Peking University as a research assistant, where he contributed to the development of various gene drive strategies. Jingheng also worked as a research assistant at Tsinghua University, participating in studies on mosquito olfactory functions before starting his PhD program.
Specializing in molecular biology and synthetic biology, Jingheng has conducted extensive research in gene drive design and testing across a range of species, including Culex quinquefasciatus, Anopheles gambiae, Anopheles stephensi, Aedes aegypti, and Drosophila melanogaster. His master’s thesis explored CRISPR-Cas13d-based gene drives targeting Anopheles gambiae melanization for malaria control, though he found that Cas13d was ineffective in cutting the target mRNA. Following this, he led a project in Champer’s lab focused on developing Culex gene drives, testing various promoters for high germline expression to enable efficient gene drive propagation. Jingheng has also contributed to the development of population suppression strategies, including a gene drive targeting the doublesex gene in Anopheles stephensi. Additionally, he has worked on modifying mosquito and fruit fly genomes using gene drives and has been involved in olfactory receptor studies in Aedes aegypti, aiming to identify olfactory receptors sensitive to human odors through molecular biology, bioinformatics and behavioral assays.
Jingheng’s research interest is at the intersection of neurophysiology and gene editing in mosquitoes. At the Dong lab, he will employ a combination of gene editing techniques and neurobiological methods to investigate the function of RNA single-base mutations in sodium channel and the underlying causes of such mutations.
email: jingheng.chen@duke.edu
