Kaili Fan, MSc, grew up in a small town in southern China where it never snowed. Her fascination with snow influenced her decision to earn her undergraduate degree in bioinformatics at Harbin Medical School in a Chinese city “famous for its frosty glory.”

When it came time for her PhD, Fan selected UMass Chan’s Program in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology specifically for the opportunity to be mentored by Zhiping Weng, PhD, Li Weibo Chair in Biomedical Research, professor of biochemistry & molecular biotechnology and director of the Program in Bioinformatics & Integrative Biology. Dr. Weng leads the data analysis center of the National Human Genome Research Institute’s Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project.

“Professors at UMass Chan are at the forefront of cutting-edge, basic biomedical research, increasing the understanding of fundamental life processes. Learning from them greatly benefits students like me in the early research stage,” Fan said.

Fan’s research focuses on gene regulation, leveraging combined data sets to characterize the regulatory elements in the human genome and investigate how they regulate gene expression.

“By integrating tremendous amounts of biological sequencing data, I explore the unique features of each sub-class of regulatory elements, investigate their diverse function and explore how they work under different biological environments,” Fan said.

Fan plans to pursue an academic career as a computational biologist, continuing research as a postdoctoral researcher and eventually opening a lab to solve more human genome puzzles.

“The path from my country town to where I am now was not easy. I’m fortunate to have had a lot of support along the way. Grateful for the little girl who never stopped fighting for her dream.”