Liangwen Zhong, PhD

Liangwen first trained as a Reproductive Biologist (2008-2016) and later as a clinical embryologist (2016-2017) at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in their first affiliated hospital IVF lab. He worked in Prof. Shi’s lab on the genetic causes of spermatogenic failure and male infertility, later moving to the US for his postdoctoral training as a stem cell biologist (2017-2022). Liangwen studied the directed differentiation of human PSCs into lung progenitors in Prof. Huang’s lab at UT Health, and pluripotency maintenance in mouse embryonic stem cells in Prof. Wen lab at Weill Cornell Medicine. Over his early training years, he generated dozens of mouse models that phenocopy non-azoospermia symptoms, defined novel functional genes that cause meiotic failure with monopololar spindle, abnormal homologous chromosome pair or synapsis or DNA repair in spermatocytes, and found that lipids promoted embryonic stem cell formative pluripotent state transition, and maintained their full developmental potency and genomic stability. In Aug. 2022, Liangwen joined the Sozen lab as an Associate Research Scientist, curious about the role of metabolism and intracellular signaling for stem-cell based embryo development, as well as for natural mammalian embryogenesis.