Xinnan Zhang

I am a Research Assistant in the Stathopoulou Group, where I study the role of CHD7 and its regulatory network in congenital heart disease. My work spans wet-lab and computational approaches. I maintain stem cells and generate cardiac organoids to track cell fate during cardiac development, and I perform genotyping of genetically engineered mouse models to support colony maintenance. I also integrate transcriptomic and epigenomic datasets to identify dysregulated signalling pathways and gene regulatory networks, applying deep learning frameworks such as ChromBPNet and AlphaGenome to model how genetic variants affect gene regulation.

I hold an MSc in Molecular Medicine (Distinction) from Imperial College London, where I investigated the functional consequences of ERG variants associated with primary lymphoedema using cellular and computational methods, and a BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences from the University of Liverpool.

My research interests center on the molecular mechanisms of genetic disease, with the long-term goal of advancing precision medicine and gene-based therapeutics. Outside the lab, I enjoy hiking and travelling.