Houjian Cai, Associate Professor, University of Georgia

Dr. Houjian Cai is an associate professor in the University of Georgia. He received the Ph.D. in the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and had his postdoctoral training in the University of California, Los Angeles. He has been studying fatty acylation modifications of proteins for over 17 years. His early study showed that protein palmitoylation is essential for kinase activity of Src family kinases. His lab has further demonstrated that protein myristoylation is essential to regulate the association of proteins in the cell membrane, and mediate cell signal transduction and oncogenic activity in prostate or other cancers. Importantly, fatty acylation is essential for proteins to be encapsulated into extracellular vesicles (EVs). His lab showed that genetically modified Cas9 leads to its myristoylation and facilitates CRISPR machinery to be encapsulated into EVs. His lab has proved the principle that this technology is able to deliver Cas9 and single guide ribonucleoprotein complex via EVs and knock out GFP gene efficiently. He has published numerous manuscripts in these research aspects. His study are supported by numerous research institutions including National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, American Institute for Cancer Research, Georgia Research Alliance, and others.