Mentoring

PhD Student:Supervision of 1 PhD student since 2021 (Université Paris Saclay, France).
Thesis title: Characterization of immune responses to Cas9 based gene editing in the retina.
Co-authored papers: Ren et.al, Journal of Visualized Experiments,2025 and Ren et.al,2025 bioRxiv.

Master Students:Mentored 5 students towards their Master thesis work.
2021: Université Paris Saclay,France.(co-supervision)
Thesis title: Humoral immune responses to ocular gene transfer in different animal models.
Co-authored papers: Ail et.al,2022 Mol.Ther.Methods and Clin.Dev. and Ren et.al,2022 Pharmaceutics.
2020: Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, France.
Thesis title: Analysis of AAV dependent immune responses in NHP retina.
2020: Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, France.
Project title: Development of a retinal degeneration model by Crispr-Cas9.
2019: Paris Descartes University, France.
Thesis title: In vitro & ex vivo validation of retinal degeneration model induced by CRISPR-Cas9.
Co-authored papers: Ail et.al,2023 Science Advances.
2017: Paris-Sud University, France. (co-supervision)
Thesis title: Development of a new model of retinal degeneration in Xenopus to study the involvement of Müller glial cells in regeneration.

Bachelor Students:Mentored 2 students towards their Bachelor thesis/ Internship work.
2019: Cergy Pontoise University, France.
Project title: Study of a photo-inducible protein to create a model of rod-cone dystrophy.
2017: University of Pune, India. Project title: Chemical activation and inhibition of the transcription factor – YAP.

Advisor of the iGEM teams
iGEM (international Genetically Engineered Machine) is a synthetic biology competition for students at Bachelor and Master level. As an advisor to the teams I am involved brainstorming with students, evaluating their scientific ideas, giving feedback, support for design of experiments, helping them critically analyze the results of the experiments and communicating the project at the final competition.
2024: HUST-UEVE-UPSaclay team from Wuhan, China (External Advisor)
I mentored the HUST-UEVE-UPSaclay team on their project ‘Aqua Guardian 2’ which focused on using synthetic biology to develop a dual-system for microplastic degradation (using E.Coli) and collection (using C.elegans). Our team won a gold medal at the iGEM competition held in Paris, France.
2023: iGEM Paris-Saclay team from Evry, France (Team Advisor)
I mentored the Evry-Paris-Saclay team on their project ‘Optogenesis’ which focused on using directed evolution to generate new variants of microbial opsins that can be used for vision restoration. Our team won the best hardware award, nomination for the best software and the iGEM gold medal. These achievements received attention and coverage from Centre Supélec, Evry University, Genopole and CEA.

Teaching

2024 - present: Courses in Undergraduate program in Life Sciences
University of Paris Saclay, France
I am involved in the course content creation (both lecture and tutorial content), giving the lectures, conducting the tutorials, preparing and conducting the continuous evaluations throughout the semesters, preparing and grading of the final exam assesments. In addition I also participate in the pedagogical meetings for designing and updating the course modules.
I am responsible for the following modules in the undergraduate program in Life Sciences -
- Regulation of Gene Expression (4th year)
- Introduction to Synthetic Biology (3rd year)
- Molecular Biology (2nd year)
- general Biology (1st year)

2020 - 2023: Lectures in Master program
Sorbonne University, Paris, France
I was giving lectures in the Master’s program in Integrative biology and physiology at the Sorbonne University.
- Lecture on ‘Gene Therapy’ in the course ‘Physiopathology of sensory diseases and translational research’.
- Lecture on ‘Viral Approaches and Virus engineering’ in the course ‘Vision from retina to primary visual cortex’.
Download and review slides of the course here: Gene Therapy Lecture

2021: Invited lecture – Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), India
I was invited to give a talk on ‘Gene Therapy’ to the Master students in Biotechnology at VIT, India.

2015: Invited lecture – University of Basel, Switzerland
I was invited to give a talk on ‘Involvement of scientific diasporas in education and empowerment’ to the Master level students in the social anthropology department of the University of Basel, Switzerland.

2012 - 2015: Practical laboratory course
University of Zurich, Switzerland
I co-supervised a lab course in Neurobiology at University of Zurich, Switzerland. This involved planning and preparing the experiments and course material/hand-outs, teaching, helping the students analyze results and troubleshoot, evaluate their reports and final presentations.