Pengli Wang
Sadly, Pengli Wang passed away in May 2026. In the words of his advisor, Michael Lin:
“In only 3.5 years in the lab, Pengli had already made an enormous and lasting impact on the field of protein engineering. He has a co-first-author paper in press describing a new method that will transform both empirical and AI-based protein engineering. He also recently submitted a first-author paper on imaging neurotransmitters through enzymatic light emission, enabling us to observe cellular communication in living animals completely noninvasively. I expect this work will lead to new ways of investigating and understanding neurological and metabolic disease.”
Read Michael Lin’s full statement.
Pengli Wang, originally from Shanghai, China, earned a BEng in Biochemical Engineering from University College London and an MSc in Biotechnology from ETH Zurich. As a PhD student in Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, he became interested in biosensor development and joined the Dynamic Molecular Design Laboratory led by Prof. Michael Lin and the Pain Mechanism Laboratory led by Prof. Vivianne Tawfik. His research focuses on visualizing neurotransmission dynamics using bioluminescent sensors. Drawn to the project’s interdisciplinary blend of bioengineering and neurobiology, Pengli was awarded the Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship and is affiliated with the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. Outside the lab, he enjoys hiking and photography.
Faculty Collaborators:
Prof. Michael Lin (lab website)
Prof. Vivianne Tawfik (lab website)
