Rate My Professor Chen Cao

Professor Chen Cao is an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and CPRIT Scholar in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas, where she joined in January 2024 through the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas First-Time, Tenure-Track Faculty Member program with a $1.8 million research grant. She holds a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Peking University (2016), as well as Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Southeast University in China. Dr. Cao completed postdoctoral training in developmental biology at Princeton University’s Lewis-Sigler Institute of Integrative Genomics in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Levine, where she advanced cell lineage reconstruction via single-cell sequencing and investigated cell type evolution in the Ciona nervous system, serving as first author on a study published in Nature (2019).

The research in Dr. Cao’s Lab of Developmental Systems Biology employs single-cell omics, imaging, and microfluidics technologies—including a 3D bioprinter to engineer tumor microenvironments—to probe lineage commitment, cell type evolution, cell-cell interactions, and the gene regulatory mechanisms governing embryogenesis and cancer progression. Her studies on the proto-vertebrate Ciona intestinalis translate developmental insights to understand cancer evolution and metastasis in humans. Dr. Cao received the Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Notable publications include “Comprehensive single-cell transcriptome lineages of a proto-vertebrate” (Nature, 2019), “Cereblon influences the timing of muscle differentiation in Ciona tadpoles” (2023), “The hypothalamus predates the origin of vertebrates” (2021), “Live-Cell Imaging of NADPH Production from Specific Pathways” (2021), “Interfacial Nanoinjection-Based Nanoliter Single-Cell Analysis” (2020), “Regulatory cocktail for dopaminergic neurons in a protovertebrate identified by whole-embryo single-cell transcriptomics” (2018), and “Shared evolutionary origin of vertebrate neural crest and cranial placodes” (2018). Her work has significantly influenced the fields of developmental biology and cancer research by pioneering single-cell approaches to lineage tracing and evolutionary cell biology.