Boyue Zhang
To design is to converse with what evolution has already written.
About
I am Boyue Zhang (张博越), an undergraduate in Biological Sciences at Zhejiang University, on the bioinformatics track, and currently a research intern at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute — the Department of Medical Biology of the University of Melbourne — through the InSPIRE program, working on CAR-T receptor design.
My interests are protein and enzyme design, computational biology and biophysics — above all at the point where a computational prediction has to survive contact with a bench experiment.
At WEHI I am supervised by Dr. Emma Petley in the labs of Prof. Matt Call and A/Prof. Melissa Call, testing whether a costimulatory receptor rebuilt into its native trimeric form makes T cells activate better.
At Zhejiang University I work with Dr. Yangwei Jiang in Prof. Ruhong Zhou’s lab on enzyme design — we redesigned the rate-limiting enzyme of astaxanthin biosynthesis and confirmed the prediction at the bench — and with Dr. Wenbin Zhou in Prof. Meihua Sui’s lab on the multi-omics basis of sex-biased liver cancer. I was Technical Lead of ZJU-China’s iGEM 2025 team, LumaManta.
This autumn I will spend a semester at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on the IASP exchange.
Sep 2026 — Dec 2026
Exchange Student, International Asian Studies Programme (IASP)
Jun 2026 — Present
Internship Student, InSPIRE Program (Fully Funded)
Department of Medical Biology, University of Melbourne
Projects
UniMelb
WEHI
2026
OngoingRedesigning a CAR-T costimulatory transmembrane domain back into its native trimeric form, screened across 120 µs+ of all-atom and coarse-grained MD with free-energy calculations, and validated by flow cytometry and degranulation assays.
iGEM
2025
Silver MedalConverting two light inputs into four sensor proteins on demand with CRISPR logic gates, packaged as an all-in-one device for water pollutant and eDNA monitoring.
ZJU
Zhou Lab
2025
OngoingCombining Rosetta FuncLib with protein language models to redesign the rate-limiting astaxanthin ketolase, validated in vitro at +46.7% yield.
ZJU Medicine
Sui Lab
2025Separating sex-driven metabolic differences from the tumour burden that confounds them, across 174 samples of paired serum metabolomics and liver transcriptomics.
ZJU
Chen Lab
2025
OutstandingEngineering vioE activity and pathway flux for pigment yield, with light- and quorum-controlled circuits that make the output switchable.
2026
UniMelbWEHI
2026
OngoingRedesigning a CAR-T costimulatory transmembrane domain back into its native trimeric form, screened across 120 µs+ of all-atom and coarse-grained MD with free-energy calculations, and validated by flow cytometry and degranulation assays.
2025
iGEM
2025
Silver MedalConverting two light inputs into four sensor proteins on demand with CRISPR logic gates, packaged as an all-in-one device for water pollutant and eDNA monitoring.
ZJU
Zhou Lab
2025
OngoingCombining Rosetta FuncLib with protein language models to redesign the rate-limiting astaxanthin ketolase, validated in vitro at +46.7% yield.
ZJU Medicine
Sui Lab
2025Separating sex-driven metabolic differences from the tumour burden that confounds them, across 174 samples of paired serum metabolomics and liver transcriptomics.
ZJU
Chen Lab
2025
OutstandingEngineering vioE activity and pathway flux for pigment yield, with light- and quorum-controlled circuits that make the output switchable.
bioinformatics
ZJU Medicine
Sui Lab
2025Separating sex-driven metabolic differences from the tumour burden that confounds them, across 174 samples of paired serum metabolomics and liver transcriptomics.
cancer biology
ZJU Medicine
Sui Lab
2025Separating sex-driven metabolic differences from the tumour burden that confounds them, across 174 samples of paired serum metabolomics and liver transcriptomics.
enzyme engineering
ZJU
Zhou Lab
2025
OngoingCombining Rosetta FuncLib with protein language models to redesign the rate-limiting astaxanthin ketolase, validated in vitro at +46.7% yield.
igem
iGEM
2025
Silver MedalConverting two light inputs into four sensor proteins on demand with CRISPR logic gates, packaged as an all-in-one device for water pollutant and eDNA monitoring.
metabolic engineering
ZJU
Chen Lab
2025
OutstandingEngineering vioE activity and pathway flux for pigment yield, with light- and quorum-controlled circuits that make the output switchable.
molecular dynamics
UniMelbWEHI
2026
OngoingRedesigning a CAR-T costimulatory transmembrane domain back into its native trimeric form, screened across 120 µs+ of all-atom and coarse-grained MD with free-energy calculations, and validated by flow cytometry and degranulation assays.
ZJU
Zhou Lab
2025
OngoingCombining Rosetta FuncLib with protein language models to redesign the rate-limiting astaxanthin ketolase, validated in vitro at +46.7% yield.
multi-omics
ZJU Medicine
Sui Lab
2025Separating sex-driven metabolic differences from the tumour burden that confounds them, across 174 samples of paired serum metabolomics and liver transcriptomics.
optogenetics
iGEM
2025
Silver MedalConverting two light inputs into four sensor proteins on demand with CRISPR logic gates, packaged as an all-in-one device for water pollutant and eDNA monitoring.
protein engineering
UniMelbWEHI
2026
OngoingRedesigning a CAR-T costimulatory transmembrane domain back into its native trimeric form, screened across 120 µs+ of all-atom and coarse-grained MD with free-energy calculations, and validated by flow cytometry and degranulation assays.
ZJU
Zhou Lab
2025
OngoingCombining Rosetta FuncLib with protein language models to redesign the rate-limiting astaxanthin ketolase, validated in vitro at +46.7% yield.
srtp
ZJU
Chen Lab
2025
OutstandingEngineering vioE activity and pathway flux for pigment yield, with light- and quorum-controlled circuits that make the output switchable.
structural biology
UniMelbWEHI
2026
OngoingRedesigning a CAR-T costimulatory transmembrane domain back into its native trimeric form, screened across 120 µs+ of all-atom and coarse-grained MD with free-energy calculations, and validated by flow cytometry and degranulation assays.
ZJU
Zhou Lab
2025
OngoingCombining Rosetta FuncLib with protein language models to redesign the rate-limiting astaxanthin ketolase, validated in vitro at +46.7% yield.
synthetic biology
iGEM
2025
Silver MedalConverting two light inputs into four sensor proteins on demand with CRISPR logic gates, packaged as an all-in-one device for water pollutant and eDNA monitoring.
ZJU
Chen Lab
2025
OutstandingEngineering vioE activity and pathway flux for pigment yield, with light- and quorum-controlled circuits that make the output switchable.
Selected Honors
Jun 2026
Oct 2025
Silver Medal, iGEM 2025 (world’s largest synthetic biology competition)
Technical Lead — ZJU-China, LumaMantaAug 2025
Apr 2026
Gold Medal, 18th "Dandelion" Undergraduate Innovation Competition
CTO — LumaManta eDNA-based aquatic pathogen detectionJan 2026
First Prize (Champion), National Pet Industry Innovation Competition
Led the “Pet Smart Health” teamFeb 2025
Provincial SRTP Research Grant — rated Outstanding
12,000 RMB2023 – 2025
Academic Honors & Scholarships
- Professional Excellence Scholarship (2023–2024)
- Second-Class Scholarship (2024–2025)
- Innovation & Entrepreneurship Model (2024–2025)
- Academic Excellence Model (2024–2025)
Jun 2025
5th Place, Stand-Up Paddleboard 200 m