Jin Billy Li, PhD, is associate professor of genetics at Stanford University. He received his bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University in Beijing and PhD from Washington University in St. Louis. After postdoctoral training with Professor George Church at Harvard Medical School, he started his laboratory at Stanford in 2010. In his own lab, he has focused on studying RNA editing mediated by ADAR enzymes. His laboratory has made major contributions to identifying and mapping RNA editing systems and studying their regulation and function.

His current work focuses on two aspects of ADAR RNA editing. One is exploring ADAR’s major biological function: evading the detection of double-strand RNA to suppress autoimmunity, which holds great potential for treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases. The other is to harness the endogenous ADAR enzyme for engineering RNAs, which holds great potential for the development of RNA-based therapeutics for both rare and common diseases.