The major research thrusts in the Mali laboratory can be categorized as follows: one, development of genome and transcriptome engineering toolsets and their application to systematic genome interpretation and gene therapy applications; and two, study and engineering of gene regulatory networks and cellular niches governing cell fate specification during development utilizing human pluripotent stem cells as the core model system. Given the parallels in phenotypes (such as self-renewal and tumor forming ability) between pluripotent stem cells and cancer cells, a key research thrust is also in dissecting aberrant cellular transformation processes such as during tumorigenesis. As such, the research program lies at the interface of technology development and basic science, and combines core expertise in synthetic biology and regenerative medicine, with instrumentation and materials engineering.