Biography

Dr. Guo received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Genetics with training in biophysics from the University of Minnesota in 1987. He was a postdoc at NIH before joining Purdue University as an assistant professor in 1990, tenured in 1993, full Professor in 1997, and was honored as a Purdue Faculty Scholar in 1998. He founded two Interdisciplinary Graduate Programs and established a NIH Nanomedicine Development Center at Purdue. He was recruited to University of Cincinnati as the Dane & Mary Louise Miller Endowed Chair of Biomedical Engineering in 2007, and was Director of the NIH Nanomedicine Development Center relocated from Purdue to University of Cincinnati. He moved to University of Kentucky as William Farish Endowed Chair in Nanobiotechnology in 2012, and currently is the UK Director of Nanobiotechnology Center and Director of NCI Cancer Nanotechnology Platform Partnership Program in RNA Nanotechnology for Cancer Therapy. 

He constructed the first viral DNA packaging motor in vitro (PNAS, 1986), discovered phi29 motor pRNA (Science, 1987), assembled infectious dsDNA viruses (J Virology, 1995), discovered pRNA hexamer (Mol Cell, 1998, featured in Cell), and pioneered RNA nanotechnology (Mol Cell, 1998, JNN, 2003; Nano Letter., 2004, 2005; Nature Nanotechnology 2010, 2011). His lab built a dual imaging system to detect single-fluorophores (EMBO J, 2007; RNA, 2007), incorporated the phi29 motor channel into a lipid membrane (Nature Nanotechnology, 2009) for single molecule sensing with potentials for high throughput dsDNA sequencing. Recently, his lab discovered a third class of biomotor using revolution mechanism without rotation.

He received the Pfizer Distinguished Faculty Award in 1995; the Purdue Faculty Scholar award in 1998; the Purdue Seed Award in 2004, 2005, and 2007; the Lions Club Cancer Research Award in 2006; and COV Distinguished Alumni of the University of Minnesota in 2009, and many other awards for research excellence. He is an editor or board member of five nanotech journals. His work has been reported hundreds of times over the radio or TV such as ABC and NBC, and featured in Newsletters or websites of NIH, NSF, MSNBC, NCI and ScienceNow etc. He was a member of two prominent national nanotech initiatives sponsored by NIST, NIH, NSF and National Council of Nanotechnology; director of one NIH Nanomedicine Development Center from 2006 to 2011; member of the NIH NDC Steering Committee from 2006-2010; NIH/NCI intramural site-visit Review Panel at 2010 and 2014; Panelist for DOD-US Army, Navy & Air Force Joined Medical Program in 2003; member of the Examination and Review Panel (Oversea Expert) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2014.