Dai named to Forbes '30 Under 30' list
Yifan Dai was selected for contributions to global cellular physiology
Yifan Dai, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named to the 2025 Forbes “30 Under 30” list in the Science category.
Dai's expertise lies in decoding and encoding the physical chemistry of biological soft matter to understand biology and engineer precision medicine. His research aims to design synthetic biology-based therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders, including ALS and Alzheimer's diseases and antibiotic-resistant infections. To do so, he engineers ways to control cell organization and understand their electrochemistry, elucidating cellular activity and accelerating the development of future treatments.
Dai joined the WashU faculty in 2023 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship in biomedical engineering at Duke University. He earned a doctorate and bachelor’s degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Case Western Reserve University in 2020 and 2017, respectively.