Yuncong Mao is a Knight-Hennessy Scholar and MD student at Stanford University working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and biology. His research focuses on building “virtual T cell” models that learn how genetic perturbations reshape T cell transcriptomes and function. Working with Theo Roth and the Machine Learning group at the Arc Institute, he aims to develop computational approaches to map gene edits to cellular behavior, with the goal of designing optimized genetic “recipes” for engineering T cells with improved persistence and clinical efficacy in immunotherapy.