Prof Patrick Yizhi Cai
Associate Faculty
Professor Cai research interests include synthetic biology, synthetic genomics, yeast genetics and laboratory automation.
Prof. “Patrick” Yizhi Cai received a bachelor degree in Computer Science in China, a master degree in Bioinformatics from University of Edinburgh in the UK, and a PhD in Genetics, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology from Virginia Tech in the USA. Prof. Cai had his postdoctoral fellowship under Jef Boeke in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Prof. Cai serves as a senior scientific consultant to Beijing Genomics Institute, and is the first Autodesk Distinguished Scholar.
From 2013 to 2017, Prof. Cai had his own research group at the University of Edinburgh with a prestigious Chancellor’s Fellowship, and his lab focuses on Computer Assisted Design for Synthetic Biology, NeoChromosome design and synthesis in the yeast, and DNA assembly automation.
In the summer of 2017, Prof. Cai moved to the University of Manchester as the new chair professor in synthetic genomics. Prof. Cai co-founded Edinburgh Genome Foundry, the International Centre for Synthetic Genomics at BGI, and the GP-Write China Centre at Chinese Academy of Sciences.
My timeline
Visiting Research Professor, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong, China
Associate Faculty in Synthetic Genomics, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK
Chair Professor of Synthetic Genomics, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, University of Manchester, UK
Reader, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, UK
Full Member Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology, University of Edinburgh, UK
Founding co-Chair, International Synthetic Genome Centre, National Gene Bank and BGI, China
Founding co-Director Edinburgh Genome Foundry, University of Edinburgh, UK
Chancellor’s Fellow and Principal Investigator, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, UK
International Coordinator, International Synthetic Yeast Consortium
Senior Scientific Consultant, Beijing Genomics Institute, Shenzhen, China
Postdoc Research Fellow with Autodesk Distinguished Scholarship Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA | Advisor: Prof. Jef Boeke
Obtained Ph.D in Genetics, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Virginia Tech, Virginia, USA | Advisor: Prof. Jean Peccoud
Obtained Master of Sciences, majored in Bioinformatics University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK | Advisor: Prof. Gordon Plotkin
Obtained Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Sciences, Talented Student Program Central South University, Changsha, China | Advisor: Prof. Sanding Luo