Qichen Fu, the 2026 Stormo Fellow receives a certificate from Dr. Mike White. 
Polly Fordyce, PhD delivers the Stormo Lecture with a talk titled, “Understanding gene regulation using high-throughput biophysics.” 
From left, William Buchser, PhD, Tychele Turner, PhD, Jennie Yao, Qichen Fu, Polly Fordyce, PhD, Gary Stormo, PhD, Ting Wang, PhD, Nancy Saccone, PhD, Michael White, PhD 
The 3rd Stormo Lecture was held on Sep. 17, 2026.
The Department of Genetics recently hosted the 3rd Gary D. Stormo Computational & Systems Biology Lecture, honoring Dr. Gary Stormo’s pioneering contributions to computational biology. This year’s lecture featured Polly Fordyce, PhD, professor of Genetics and Bioengineering at Stanford University, who presented a talk titled “Understanding gene regulation using high-throughput biophysics.” Her research combines quantitative biophysics, genomics and high-throughput technologies to investigate the mechanisms underlying gene regulation.
The department also announced Qichen Fu as the recipient of the 2026 Stormo Fellowship in Computational and Systems Biology. Fu is a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Ting Wang.
Qichen came to WashU after earning dual bachelor of science degrees in bioinformatics from Zhejiang University and the University of Edinburgh. His long-term goal is to understand how genomic and epigenomic variation shapes phenotypes. He began exploring these questions as a summer research student in Ben Lehner’s lab, where he worked on an experimental platform to measure the functional impact of genetic variation at scale.
In the Wang laboratory, Qichen has tackled the challenging problem of using the human pangenome to discover somatic mutations in tumors. By providing a broader representation of human genetic diversity, the pangenome could help researchers identify mutations that may otherwise be missed, with potential implications for cancer diagnosis and treatment.
“This is work that rewards a particular kind of creativity. In a field this unsettled, progress does not come from applying a known recipe,” Wang wrote in his nomination. He added, “He shoulders hard responsibility and delivers, at the frontier of a field. He is among the most productive students I have mentored at his stage.”
We are delighted to recognize Qichen’s accomplishments and the promise of his future contributions. Please join us in congratulating Qichen Fu on receiving the 2026 Stormo Fellowship!