People – The Advanced Biotherapeutics Lab

Jiahe Li（李嘉禾）

Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering & Medical School
Affiliate faculty member in Cellular and Molecular Biology (CMB)
, Program in Chemical Biology (PCB) and Cancer Biology Program.

Bio
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I was a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Northeastern University from 2019 to 2023, and relocated my lab to the University of Michigan in the summer of 2023.

Education
Post-doc, David Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT, 2015-2018
PhD, Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University, 2009-2015
BS, Microbiology, China Agricultural University, 2005-2009

Honors & Awards
2025 CMBE Rising Stars Award, BMES
2024 Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Young Innovator Award, BMES
2024 Swim Across America (SAA) Young Investigator Award
2023 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award
2023 NSF CAREER
2021 NIBIB Trailblazer Award
2021 Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program, Idea Award, Department of Defense
2020 Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program, Discovery Award, Department of Defense
2018 Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program, Discovery Award, Department of Defense
2016 David Koch Institute Quinquennial Postdoctoral Fellowship

Research Staff

Amber Haley

Research Technician

Amber obtained her BS in microbiology from Eastern Michigan University. Research interests: CRISPR, bacterial conjugation, and microbiome editing

Zhihong Dong

Industrial Coordinator

Dr. Dong obtained

his MD in Xi’an Jiaotong University. He is coordinating industry collaboration for next-generation sequencing.

Claire Law

Administrative Assistant

Postdoctoral Fellows

Noah Hutchinson

Postdoctoral Researcher

Noah obtained his PhD in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Research interests:

Probiotics engineering to modulate lactate metabolism

Zeyang Pang

Postdoctoral Researcher

Zeyang obtained his PhD from a joint program of SUSTech (Shenzhen, China) and University of Leeds (UK).Research interests: Antibacteria, bioimaging, and drug delivery

Graduate Students

Brian Hamp

2nd year PhD student in UM BME

Brian obtained his BS in Bioengineering from Northeastern University. He spent a few years in biotech industry before pursuing a PhD in BME. Research interests: CRISPR, bacterial conjugation, and microbiome editing

Zongqi Wang

2nd year PhD student in UM BME

Zongqi obtained a MS in Bioengineering from Northeastern University. Research interests: Bacterial surface display for cancer immunotherapy

Maria Jennings

1st year PhD student in UM BME

Maria obtained her BS in BME from the University of Michigan.

Research interests: CRISPR, bacterial conjugation, and microbiome editing

Ningyuan Ye

2nd year MS student in BME

Research interests: Bacterial engineering for therapeutic development.

Chengyuan Fang

Visiting MD-PhD student

Chengyuan is a 1st year MD-PD program student from Harbin Medical University

Research interests: The roles of gut microbiota in cancer immunotherapy

Collins Chimezie

1st year PhD student in Chemical Biology

Collins obtained his BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria, and earned an MS in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Research Interests: Microbial engineering, CRISPR, synthetic biology of natural products