Mengze Helen He
Mengze (Helen) He is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Genetics at Yale University. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University in 2017 and she joined the Zhang Lab at Yale University as a research associate and investigated the regulated SNARE unfolding and assembly involved in neurotransmission, insulin secretion, and other basic biological processes using optical tweezers. Helen joined the Nicoli Lab in 2020. Helen’s research focuses on epithelial cell biology, exploring how cells are mechanically organized to build tissue complexity. Proficient in confocal microscopy and genetics, she uses zebrafish fin fold development as a model to study the role of embryonic epidermal stem cells in organizing the periderm’s resilience to mechanical injury. Her work examines how cellular mechanical organization can be specialized to enhance mechanical resilience, offering...