Stanford School of Engineering

Nina Zhao in safety glasses and a blue lab coat smiles while holding a box of samples in a lab aisle lined with shelves of supplies.

‘We live in a chemical world’

Profile

Nina Zhao is working to map the drugs, pesticides, and pollutants we encounter in daily life – often unknowingly – and to understand how they shape human and ecosystem health.
Two immune cells under fluorescence: chromatin sits compact in an intact cell's nucleus (left), then spreads as the membrane ruptures (right).

What makes an immune cell pop

Research

A Stanford study reveals how changes in DNA packaging can help immune cells burst, shedding light on a defense process implicated in autoimmune diseases.

Karl Deisseroth wins Nobel Prize

Video

The professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences shares the prize with two other researchers for their work in optogenetics.