Steven (Wencheng) Xu
Steven (Wencheng) Xu is a pursuing a doctoral course in Generative Biology at the University of Oxford under the direction of Professor Chang Liu. Wencheng received a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Bioengineering from McGill University with placement on the Dean’s Honour List. Currently, his research focuses on de novo gene birth, utilizing continuous evolution systems to elucidate the emergence of de novo protein and RNA functions from previous non-functional sequence libraries.
During his undergraduate studies, Steven engaged in research on bacterial replication, developed skills in single-molecule tracking microscopy, data analysis and biomolecular techniques. He has co-authored a paper published in PNAS1 with contributions in developing an analysis method of classify segments of single-molecule trajectories from microscopy data. Also, as a part of his senior design project, Steven worked on designing a bioinformatic pipeline for biosynthetic pathway elucidation in a team and presented his work on McGill Design Day 2025.