Affiliation: University of Michigan

Dr. Dawen Cai is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan. He obtained his PhD in Biophysics from the University of Michigan in 2007 and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University until 2011. The Cai Laboratory works on neural circuits in the brain using Drosophila and mouse as model organisms. The lab develops novel genetic, imaging, and computational tools for neural circuit tracing at the whole-brain scale with synapse resolution. They also work on identifying neural circuit "motifs" that specify brain functions, and depicting molecular, neuronal, and circuitry mechanisms that contribute to neuron fate determination and autism.