Li lab: I prefer to call myself an engineer and would like to become an excellent bioengineer through a series of comprehensive training in the Plants3D program. Science is about discovery, while engineering is more about design and application. The beauty of being an engineer and doing bioengineering work is all about how those scientific discoveries in the biology-related field can be applied creatively and solve pressing problems in the real world. I am interested in using synthetic biology tools to address practical issues in plant biology, especially in realizing the heterologous biosynthesis of valuable phytochemicals by developing efficient cell factories in industrial microbes, such as the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. I am also interested in mining and characterizing novel biocatalysts for the improved investigation and understanding of the fundamental aspects of enzyme catalysis and gene regulation in plants.