Scholar Profile

Richard Ruan

Biotechnology

Biography

Richard Ruan is currently pursuing his PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology at Duke University, which awarded him the Dean's Graduate Fellowship and Centennial Graduate Professional Fellowship. His primary research interests span iPSC-derived organoids, cardiovascular disease genetics, and gene therapy.

Richard studied Bioengineering at UC Berkeley as a Haas Scholar and Regents' and Chancellor's Scholar. As a part of his undergraduate research in the Harris Lab, he completed an honors thesis focused on elucidating the critical host factors involved in Dengue Virus and SARS-CoV-2 infection. Prior to starting graduate school, he conducted research on novel cardiomyopathy targets at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in the Ellinor Lab and its collaborations with Bayer and Novo Nordisk. He also worked as a Senior Associate Scientist at Alexion-AstraZeneca within their Cardiovascular Genomic Medicines group.

High school:  West High School

Degrees

News and Highlights

08/11/2021 Richard Ruan (MS '18)

Future Physician-Scientist: Congratulations to Richard Ruan, MS ‘18, for being selected as a Berkeley Haas Scholar for his academic and community achievements. Each year, twenty highly qualified, academically talented undergraduates with financial need are selected to come together to build a supportive intellectual community during their final year at UC Berkeley. As a Haas Scholar, Richard's senior year project will be identifying host factors critical for dengue virus NS1 and SARS-CoV-2 Spike pathogeneses. Congratulations again, Ruan! We are excited to see all that will emerge from your work!