People | Lun Lab

Xiaokang Lun

Assistant Professor
Departmenet of Genetics, Cell Biology and Genetics
Medical School
Masonic Cancer Center
University of Minnesota
Email: [email protected]

Address: MCB 4-116

Xiaokang was born and raised in China. He earned his Bachelor's degree in Biology from Wuhan University and a Master's degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Amsterdam, through a Huygens Scholarship. Xiaokang completed his PhD in Dr. Bernd Bodenmiller’s lab at the University of Zurich, where he studied how variability in intracellular signaling networks influences cell fate and disease progression. Following his PhD, he received two consecutive postdoctoral fellowships from the Swiss National Science Foundation to continue his research in Dr. Peng Yin’s lab at the Wyss Institute, Harvard University. During his postdoctoral training, Xiaokang developed DNA nanotechnology-based solutions for protein identification, quantification, and functional analyses.

Haipei Zhao

Postdoctoral Researcher

Address: MCB 4-184

Email: [email protected]

Haipei Zhao earned her PhD at Shanghai Jiao Tong University under the mentorship of Professors Chunhai Fan and Xiaolei Zuo. As a graduate student, she focused on molecular diagnostics using programmable nucleic acid probes. Following her doctoral studies, she joined Dr. Ping Song’s lab as a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, where she investigated cell-free DNA (cfDNA) detection. Her research interests lie in developing innovative technologies for disease diagnosis, with a particular focus on detecting cfDNA, proteins, and metabolites. Haipei has co-authored several high-impact publications, including Zhao et al., Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 2019; Zhao et al., Angewandte Chemie, 2023; and Yin and Zhao et al., Nature Nanotechnology, 2023.

Zili Huang

Postdoctoral Researcher

Address: MCB 4-184

Zili Huang earned his PhD at Sichuan University under the mentorship of Professor Yi Lv. He focused on the development of analytical methods and diagnostics by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) and mass cytometry. During his doctoral researches, he mainly investigated mass-cytometric multiplexed proteomics and barcode-based high-throughput diagnostics. His research interests lie in developing innovative barcoding protocols for highly-multiplexed diagnostics and high-throughput single-cell phenotyping with metal-ion/-nanoparticle tagging. Zili has published several first-author high-impact publications, including Huang et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2025, 147, 6, 4904–4914; Huang et al., Chem. Sci. 2022, 13, 6270-6275; Huang et al., Anal. Chem. 2020, 92, 24, 16105–16112; Huang et al., Anal. Chem. 2022, 94, 37, 12899–12906 ; Huang et al., Anal. Chem. 2020, 92, 3, 2876–2881.