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Jalen Neuroscience Nerd Cai

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·What this is

I tend to collect questions faster than I answer them. Some turn into research projects, some into songs, some into organizations, and some into side quests that probably did not need to become this serious.

This site is a running record of the things I have built, studied, performed, competed in, and gotten unusually curious about.

01 Taking up most of the year

The three that get the late nights

Everything else on this site is real, but these are the ones currently running.

01 Independent research 2025–Present

Can Gut Bacteria Change the Brain?

Independent gut–brain axis & probiotic research

Whether biological changes linked to alcohol and caffeine exposure can be used to identify gut microbes worth testing as possible modulators of the gut–brain axis — worked out through metabolomic comparison, a computational ranking pipeline, and now experimental validation back at the bench.

Ongoing Gut–brain axisMetabolomicsComputational screeningWet lab

Project posterTODOManuscriptTODO

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The wider USC research thread — where the wet-lab habits came from

02 Independent project · USC mentorship 2026–Present

CAI-Vax: Designing Personalized mRNA Cancer Vaccines

Computational tools for comparing candidate designs

An independent project exploring how computational tools can help compare candidate designs for personalized mRNA cancer vaccines — evaluating cancer-associated antigen sequences, comparing design options, and organizing candidates for later experimental testing.

Ongoing mRNA designComputational screeningImmuno-oncologyTeam project

Public write-upTODOTeam pageTODO

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03 Nonprofit · founder 2022–Present

Sympify

Fueling Futures Foundation

It started as a reverse-dictionary prototype: instead of looking up a disease and finding its symptoms, start with the symptoms. It has since become an organisation with chapters in three countries. This page is not the organisation's pitch — it is what building it actually looked like.

Ongoing Health equityNonprofitProductTeam building

Visit Sympify.orgTry SympifyTODORead the research

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