Joshua Weinstein

Joshua Weinstein is an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago, holding dual appointments in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the Department of Medicine's Section of Genetic Medicine. His research focuses on developing DNA-based technologies for precision biology, including DNA microscopy and immune receptor sequencing.

Education:

• Bachelor's in Physics and Biophysics, University of Pennsylvania
• PhD in Biophysics, Stanford University (2012)
• Postdoctoral work at Broad Institute/MIT with Feng Zhang and Aviv Regev

Research Interests: Biophysics, Numerical Analysis, Molecular Biology. His lab pioneers DNA microscopy—using DNA as an imaging medium to map genetic diversity spatially. This technique bypasses traditional optics, enabling self-imaging of biological specimens. He also studies immune diversity via high-throughput sequencing, with applications in vaccine response analysis and genetic cartography.

Publications Trends: Recent work emphasizes volumetric DNA microscopy for 3D organism imaging, CRISPR-Cas targeting methods, and immune repertoire analysis. Key innovations include distributed molecular networks for spatial data encoding and optics-free imaging modalities.

Awards:

• 2021 Damon Runyon Innovation Award
• 2020 Moore Inventor Fellow
• Simons Fellowship from the Life Sciences Research Foundation

Advising & Labs: Leads the Weinstein Lab, which develops next-generation DNA technologies. Current projects include spatial transcriptomics and CRISPR-based tools. Open positions available for researchers interested in precision biology.

Labs/Teams: Collaborates across molecular engineering and medicine, leveraging interdisciplinary approaches to advance imaging and sequencing techniques.