Rongzhen Tian
Principal Investigator
Rongzhen Tian is a Principal Investigator at the Generative Biology Institute, EIT, and an Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford.
Rongzhen completed his undergraduate, master's, and PhD degrees in fermentation engineering at Jiangnan University between 2014 and 2022. His research during his master's and PhD focused on synthetic biology, with a specialization in developing bacterial continuous evolution tools and expression regulation elements through various approaches. In November 2022, he joined Jason Chin's lab at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB) as a postdoctoral scientist, where he developed a synthetic orthogonal replication system in E. coli (EcORep) to accelerate the evolution of complex biological functions.
Full list of publications here.
Khiara Berkowitz
Ph.D. Student
Khiara completed her undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology at Princeton University, where she investigated CRISPR-Cas13 and genetic code expansion technologies under the supervision of Cameron Myhrvold. As a recipient of the Henry Richardson Labouisse ’26 Prize, she subsequently joined Silvia Portugal’s team at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, where she focused on optimizing a single-cell RNA sequencing approach to study malaria parasite persistence within asymptomatic hosts in seasonal transmission settings. These experiences sparked a fascination with how biological functions emerge and evolve. Through EcORep, she looks forward to optimizing and harnessing accelerated evolution to generate novel biological functions and deepen our understanding of molecular and cellular evolution.
Khoa Chung
Postdoctoral Fellow
Khoa completed his MChem degree at the University of York where he contributed to the completion of the biosynthetic pathway of the anticancer compound vinblastine within Professor Sarah O’Connor group at the John Innes Centre. He then joined the Synthetic Biology CDT to pursue his DPhil in the laboratory of Professors Michael Booth and Hagan Bayley at the University of Oxford where he developed a general method to install modified nucleotides site-specifically onto plasmid sequences, and applied the method to externally control plasmid expression with UV light. After a short stint in the Tom Brown group developing a DMT-free approach for oligonucleotide purification, he joined MiNA Therapeutics to apply their RNA activation approach to treat sickle cell disease. He joined the GBI in January 2026 as a postdoc within the Tian and Rehm labs to develop a novel display methodology. Outside the lab, Khoa enjoys reading and attending theatre and concerts.
Dennis Wang
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dennis is a postdoctoral researcher in the Tian lab. He recently received his PhD in infection and immunity from Cambridge, where he explored the field of neuroimmunology and synthetic biology. He is excited for the projects at GBI and see how they can be linked to his previous projects and human health. At his spare time, you can find him exploring miscellanous things, both physical and metaphysical.
Katina Renata Medina Costales
Research Assistant
Katina is a research assistant with a background in plant biotechnology and biotechnology engineering. Her interests lie in genetic engineering and synthetic biology. She is currently involved in research focused on developing approaches for mitochondrial transformation.
Outside the lab, she enjoys being in nature, hiking, solving puzzles, playing tennis, and visiting museums.
Shaozhong Zou
Research Assistant
Shaozhong is passionate about engineering DNA sequences.
He was previously a Research Assistant at the National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS) in Beijing, where he developed a novel approach for scalable DNA synthesis using low-cost oligo pools as raw materials.
At GBI, he is interested in developing high-throughput approaches for data generation combined with continuous evolution.
Cyril Schroeder
Translation Associate
Cyril completed his undergraduate and master's degrees in Interdisciplinary Sciences at ETH Zurich. His master's thesis, conducted under the supervision of Professor Massimo Morbidelli, focused on phage display and next-generation sequencing. He subsequently undertook a research project at MIT in Professor Klavs Jensen's lab, where he applied Bayesian optimisation and neural networks to accelerate scientific discovery. He completed his DPhil in Computational Discovery at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor Syma Khalid, investigating the interactions of antimicrobial peptides with Gram-negative bacteria through computational approaches.
Maurice Biedermann
Translation Associate
Maurice studied Interdisciplinary Sciences at ETH Zürich, where he completed both his BSc and MSc. After a one-year internship in medicinal chemistry at Roche, he returned to ETH Zürich for a PhD with Prof. Helma Wennemers. In his PhD, Maurice explored the bioorthogonal reactivity of isonitriles for chemoselective ligations, identification of natural products, and prodrug activation. In January 2026, Maurice joined EIT Oxford, where he works on translating continuous evolution to commercial applications.
Join Our Team!
We are seeking motivated and talented individuals to join us. Current opportunities include:
Please apply through the link or contact us directly via email with your interests and CV attached.