Chialing Wu, PhD, works in the lab of Erica Cai, PhD, to integrate genetic engineering and pancreatic beta cell biology to better understand diabetes pathogenesis and enable innovative therapeutic strategies.
Prior to joining the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute (IBRI), her work focused on upstream bioprocess development under the CMC function in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. She has decades of experience in strain engineering and fermentation process development to produce biomass-derived fuels, chemicals and therapeutic biologics using aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, yeast and mammalian cells.
During her doctoral studies she utilized transcriptomic and metabolomic approaches to elucidate the underlying mechanism that conferred acidic acid resistance in yeast, which helped streamline the fermentation process to produce the second-generation biofuels.
At the IBRI, she interfaced CRISPR technology with biochemical analyses on the diabetic beta cell line and mice to unfold the pathogenesis of diabetes. She hopes one day she will utilize her experience in fermentation to translate the key components discovered at the IBRI into prominent therapeutics for diabetic patients.