He studied Chemistry at Peking University from 2000 to 2004, and did his Ph.D. thesis on structural DNA nanotechnology with Prof. Hao Yan at Arizona State University from 2005 to 2009. He continued his research in biomolecular nanotechnology as a research fellow with Prof. William Shih at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Wyss Institute at Harvard and Harvard Medical School from 2009 to 2012. In September 2012, he moved to Yale University, where he leads a research team that focuses on developing DNA-nanostructure-based molecular tools for biological studies.