Hsu earned his bachelor's degree in bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He then completed his PhD at Harvard University under the mentorship of Feng Zhang at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he worked on early CRISPR-based gene-editing technologies, including one of the first demonstrations of Cas9 human genome engineering.[2][3][4][5]
After completing his doctorate at age 21,[6] Hsu led early stage discovery projects at Editas Medicine.[5][7] At 23, he established his independent research group as a Salk Fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he developed CRISPR-Cas13 systems for transcriptome engineering.[8] He later joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where his lab focuses on AI foundation models for biology and developing gene editing technologies.[1] His research has over 65,000 citations, according to Google Scholar.[9]
Hsu was named to the MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 list in 2017.[11] He was included in Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science in 2015 for his contributions to CRISPR technology.[12] His lab's discovery of programmable recombinases was named among the 5 Important Medical Breakthroughs of 2024 by Forbes,[13] and genomic language models developed by Arc scientists were named one of The Most Important Breakthroughs of 2024 by The Atlantic.[14]
DNA foundation models that enable biological sequence modeling and design across molecular contexts and modalities, published on the cover of Science in November 2024.[17]
AI-driven gene editing, where computational models are used to design new gene editors that surpass naturally occurring enzymes.[18]
Bridge RNAs for programmable recombination, which allow for precise DNA modifications without traditional genome-editing tools.[19] In 2025, his research group reported in Science the ability to manipulate up to 1 million bases of the human genome.[20]
"Jumping gene" enzymes, which enable DNA insertion and deletion without using CRISPR, a novel approach published in Nature in 2024.[21]
CRISPR-based DNA and RNA-targeting technologies, establishing widely used tools for genome editing.[22][23]
Commercial interests
Hsu is a co-founder of Stylus Medicine, a biotechnology company that raised $85 million in 2025 to commercialize gene insertion technology developed in his lab,[24] and of Terrain Biosciences, a startup leveraging AI models and technologies for designing and manufacturing RNA.[25]
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