Li-Qun “Andrew” Gu
Professor, Biological and Biomedical Engineering
221 Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center
Phone: 573.882.2057
Email: gul@missouri.edu
Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
Biography
Li-Qun “Andrew” Gu is leading an interdisciplinary laboratory that has a long-term vision: integrating biomolecular engineering with nanobiotechnology to explore life science problems and develop sophisticated molecular diagnostic tools for personalized medicine. Gu is an awardee of an NSF CAREER grant. Supported by the NIH grants and Coulter Translational Program, his lab is developing ultrasensitive single-molecule technology for disease biomarker detection. He is working on nanopore-based single-molecule technology for rapid, label-free and low-cost gene sequencing and various genetic, epigenetic and proteomic detections. He utilizes his technology to explore COVID-19 genetic structures and screens their targeting drugs. The new generation of programmable nanopore biosensors is being combined with smart polymers and microfluidics to create robust chip devices for medical diagnosis, treatment and high-throughput screening at the molecular level. One example is the detection of cancer-associated circulating microRNAs for non-invasive and cost-effective cancer detection. His lab recently also developed gene material-based data storage, DNA hard drive and nucleic acid memory for broad biomedical applications (Nature Nanotech. Nano. 2011, ACS Nano 2013, 2014, 2015, JACS 2015, Nat Communication. 2017).
Education
PhD from Nankai University
Technical Focus
Gene material/DNA data storage/nucleic acid memory
Nanopore science/engineering/gene/protein sequencing
Next generation single-molecule biosensing technologies
Teaching
- BE-4470/7470 Biomolecular Engineering and Nanobiotechnology
- BE-8470 Frontiers in ultrasensitive bio-detection (single-molecule and single-cell detection)