Guanyi Huang, associate principal scientist at Merck, has often found himself in the right place at the right time.
The son of a middle school math teacher and computer science professor-turned-entrepreneur, Huang developed an early fascination with molecular biology. He grew up in the city of Xinyang in central China, and majored in biology as an undergraduate and master’s student at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei.
In 2009, he moved to California and started his PhD studies in genetics, molecular and cell biology in the Programs in Biological and Biomedical Sciences (PIBBS) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. After completing his required three lab rotations, he opted to spend a summer doing an extra fourth rotation in the USC Stem Cell lab of Qi-Long Ying and discovered a new passion.
“Stem cell research is really interesting,” he said. “It’s very basic cell biology and molecular biology. But at the same time, you could almost see the future of clinical use—and use them to solve both basic biological questions, and also for therapeutic purposes. So this is really at the forefront, and would be very valuable knowledge to apply to other aspects of biology.”
To read more, visit https://stemcell.keck.usc.edu/meet-uscs-cirm-scholar-alumnus-guanyi-huang.