James Ferrell, Professor

James Ferrell was born in Gary, Indiana and raised in Chicago and Pittsburgh. He was an undergraduate at Williams College, where he majored in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics, and graduated in 1976. For his undergraduate thesis he worked with David A. Park on nonlinear dynamics and chaos in the Hénon-Heiles model of stars in an axisymmetrical galactic potential. After graduating he came west to Stanford for medical school and graduate school. His did his Ph.D. thesis in Chemistry with Wray H. Huestis, working on cell shape control and phosphoinositide metabolism in human erythrocytes. He received his Ph.D. in 1984 and his M.D. in 1986. He then moved to UC Berkeley for postdoctoral studies with G. Steven Martin on tyrosine-specific protein phosphorylation in human platelets, mammalian cell lines, and Xenopus laevis oocytes, eggs, and embryos.

He began his independent career in the Dept. of Zoology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1990. He moved to the Dept. of Pharmacology at Stanford University School of Medicine in 1992. The Department later became the Dept. of Chemical and Systems Biology, which he chaired from its inception in 2006 until 2011. Currently he is Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology and Professor of Biochemistry.

Zhengda Li, Staff Scientist

Zhengda was born in Henan, a central province in China. He attended Peking University to study Biological Science, and got interested in using theoretical and computational tools to solve biological problems. He joined Qiong Yang’s lab at the University of Michigan to study design principles of biological oscillators and used Xenopus extract droplets to test theoretical predictions. He got his Ph.D. in 2019 and moved to the Ferrell lab to study trigger wave propagation in two dimensional space. His current project is to investigate the spatial constrictions in neuronal pruning. In his free time, Zhengda enjoys hiking, table tennis and cooking.

Tomoko Oshima, Grad Student

Tomoko was born in Fukuoka and raised in Tokyo, Japan. As a child, she enjoyed finding small traces of nature in the city, such as collecting acorns and observing jellyfish in Tokyo Bay. She attended the University of Tokyo and joined Dr. Noboru Mizushima’s lab in 2017, where she studied the role of phase separation in ferritin degradation. This research sparked her interest in the cytoplasm as a unique environment that enables biological processes.
Around the same time, she was inspired by a paper on a reaction–diffusion system driven by dual phosphorylation of a protein, which opened her eyes to mathematical biology. After receiving her B.S. and M.D., she completed two years of clinical internship at Nagano Red Cross Hospital.

During this period, her interest in the cytoplasm as an active reaction environment continued to grow, leading her to dive into mathematical and systems biology to explore its complexity. She is particularly interested in understanding how the cytoplasm influences the localization, function, and performance of proteins. As a PhD student under the guidance of the Ferrell and Daniel Jarosz Labs, she is currently studying how prions form and propagate in the crowded cytoplasm. Outside the lab, Tomoko enjoys exploring the vast nature of California.

Muziyue Wu, Postdoc

Muziyue was born in Hunan Province, China, and moved to Tianjin when she was eight years old. She received her undergraduate degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Tsinghua University. During her senior year, she joined Tanja Kortemme’s lab at UCSF through a two-year exchange program, where she worked on computational protein design using Rosetta. After graduation, she entered the UCSF biophysics graduate program and joined Orion Weiner’s lab, where she studied how neutrophils build distinct membrane protrusion structures during migration. After receiving her PhD, she began her postdoctoral training in the Ferrell Lab in 2026. She is still figuring out what she wants to do and is currently exploring protein synthesis and degradation during Xenopus egg development. Outside the lab, she enjoys cooking and skiing.

Huan Zheng, Postdoc

Huan was born in Henan, China. She went to Wuhan for her undergraduate studies. During this time, she became interested in quantum biology and wanted to understand how pigeons sense Earth’s magnetic field through magnetically sensitive proteins. She then joined Rodrigo Reyes’s lab at McGill University to study biophysics, using single-molecule tracking to understand the molecular circuits that control cell size. She earned her Ph.D. in 2024 and joined the Ferrell Lab to study how cells maintain and adapt to changes in macromolecular crowding. In her free time, Huan enjoys skiing, gardening (with just a few plants on her balcony), and walking her cat.

Scout, Dog

At about 4 months of age Scout was found wandering on Page Mill Road in Los Altos Hills and was taken in by Palo Alto Animal Services. JF saw her profile online while lecturing in Buenos Aires, and adopted her on the way home from SFO.

Scout’s lab responsibilities include psychological counseling and shedding. She enjoys snoozing on the couch in Jim’s office, and likes nothing more than visiting with all her Stanford friends every day.

Scout is a good doggie. She is a friend to all and a sister to every other dog.