Developmental Biology Program

The Junhong Choi Lab

Junhong Choi, PhD

Assistant Professor

Assistant Professor

The Choi Lab develops new synthetic biology tools to study cell-fate decisions in development. During development, cells differentiate into various cell types with distinct functions. To understand how different cell types are made, we need a tool to observe cells’ previous and current states, as well as the sequence of events they undergo. We focus on developing such new tools through:

Cellular engineering
Molecular circuitry
DNA as an information storage medium, and
Synthetic models for cellular development

These novel tools will provide new insights into understanding cell-fate decisions and facilitate cellular engineering for future therapy.

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Research Projects

Publications Highlights

Wei Chen*,#, Junhong Choi*, Xiaoyi Li, Jenny F. Nathans, Beth Martin, Wei Yang, Nobuhiko Hamazai, Chengxiang Qiu, Jean-Benoit Lalanne, Samuel Regalado, Haedong Kim, Vikram Agarwal, Eva Nichols, Anh Leith, Choli Lee, Jay Shendure#. “Symbolic recording of signalling and cis-regulatory element activity to DNA” Nature (2024)

Hanna Liao*, Junhong Choi*,#, Jay Shendure#. “Molecular recording using DNA Typewriter” Nature Protocol (2024)

Junhong Choi#, Wei Chen, Hanna Liao, Xiaoyi Li, Jay Shendure#. “A molecular proximity sensor based on an engineered, dual-component guide RNA” bioRxiv (preprint) (2023)

Junhong Choi#, Wei Chen, Anna Minkina, Florence M. Chardon, Chase C. Suiter, Samuel G. Regalado, Silvia Domcke, Nobuhiko Hamazaki, Choli Lee, Beth Martin, Riza M. Daza, Jay Shendure#. “A time-resolved, multi-symbol molecular recorder via sequential genome editing” Nature 608, 98-107 (2022)

Junhong Choi*,#, Wei Chen*, Chase C. Suiter, Choli Lee, Florence M. Chardon, Wei Yang, Anh Leith, Riza M. Daza, Beth Martin, Jay Shendure#. “Precise genome deletions using paired prime editing” Nature Biotechnology 40, 218-226 (2021)

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People

Junhong Choi, PhD

Assistant Professor

Assistant Professor

The Choi Lab develops new synthetic biology tools to study cell-fate decisions in development.
PhD, Stanford University

[email protected]: Email Address

Members

Stephanie Martinez
Administrative Assistant

Sung-Eun Park

Research Technician

Lab Affiliations

Achievements

Damon Runyon-Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists (2024-2026)
K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award (2023-2027)
Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellowship (2020-2023)
Stanford Bio-X Graduate Fellowship (2015-2018)

Open Positions

To learn more about available postdoctoral opportunities, please visit our Career Center

To learn more about compensation and benefits for postdoctoral researchers at MSK, please visit Resources for Postdocs

General Opportunities

We are actively recruiting research scientists, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students who are interested in synthetic biology, stem-cell biology, single-cell genomics, and developmental biology.

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Get in Touch

[email protected]

Lab Head Email

Disclosures

Doctors and faculty members often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community.

MSK requires doctors and faculty members to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public.

Junhong Choi discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

No disclosures meeting criteria for time period

The information published here is a complement to other publicly reported data and is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.

This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2023 through disclosure submission in spring 2024). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at [email protected].

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