Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to all those who have contributed to the completion of this research work.

We thank our research supervisor Robert Cooper, for his valuable guidance, support, and encouragement throughout the project. We extend our sincere appreciation to Professor Wheeler and our BENG 187 TAs for sharing their valuable insights and experiences as well as providing administrative supervision.We are also grateful to the Hasty lab for providing us with the necessary resources and facilities to carry out this research, and some of its researchers for helping us here and there. Thank you all for your valuable contributions to this project.

Written by Tianyi Bian