Kiskinis Lab

Wanaho Chi, PhD Postdoctoral Fellow

Phone: 312-503-6126 | E-mail: wanhao.chi[at]northwestern.edu

Wanhao was born and raised in China. She received her bachelor's degree in Biochemistry from Yantai University, master's degree in Genetics from Zhejiang University, and Ph.D. in Genetics, Genomics, and Systems Biology (GGSB) from the University of Chicago. Before graduate school, she worked in Dr. Xiaoxi Zhuang's laboratory in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Chicago. She performed studies on Parkinson's disease using cell and mouse genetic models. In addition, she introduced Drosophila to the lab and studied the genetic basis of foraging behavior using genomic approaches. During graduate school she established the first animal model of PNPO deficiency-induced epilepsy and studied the genetic and neural mechanisms underlying this disease using knock-in flies. Her long-term research goal is to study how mild deficiency in essential metabolic genes, may confer susceptibility to human disease depending on gene-gene or gene-environment interactions. In 2022, she joined in the Kiskinis laboratory. Her work is centered on how pathogenic genetic variants of ion channel genes contribute to epilepsy and ALS. She has been the recipient of several doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships and awards, including the University of Chicago BSD Donald Steiner Award (2018), GGSB Best Thesis Award (2020), NIH Training T32 Predoctoral Fellowship (2017-2018), NIH Training T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship (2019-2021), and University of Chicago BSD Career Advancement for Postdocs Travel Award (2021). In her free time, she enjoys hiking, reading, and practicing Chinese calligraphy.