Uni-Law

Law for biology and transport in the age of AI

Uni-Law is a research lab working where law meets the life sciences and transportation engineering. We ask how the rules should be written, and by whom, as AI changes what both fields can do.

Genomic data AI in biomedicine Biosecurity Automated vehicles Drones and airspace Pilot and driver monitoring Standards and soft law Comparative regulation Pandemic mobility controls
  • Law
  • Life sciences
  • Transportation engineering
    • Each station is a research question. Select one to read it.

Where our members work

  • McGill University, Faculty of Law Research Group on Health and Law: doctoral fellowship, funded by an FRQSC research team grant
  • McGill University, Department of Civil Engineering Doctoral research and research assistantship in transportation
  • UNIDROIT, Rome Research internship at the UNIDROIT Library, 2026

Uni-Law Lab is independent. Affiliations identify our members' own positions and funding; they do not mean these institutions endorse the lab.

What we study

AI now helps design molecules, read genomes, drive cars and route aircraft. Each of these shifts raises legal questions that neither engineers nor lawyers can answer alone. We work on those questions from both sides at once.

Law and the life sciences

How health, genetic and biological research should be governed when AI speeds it up and spreads it out.

  • Genomic and health data
  • AI-assisted drug discovery and clinical research
  • Global health governance and pandemic preparedness
  • Biosecurity and dual-use research

Law and transport

How liability, safety and data rules should work for vehicles, networks and airspace that increasingly run themselves.

  • Automated and connected vehicles
  • Drones and low-altitude airspace
  • Human factors: pilot workload and driver fatigue
  • Large language model agents in transport systems
  • Safety certification of AI systems

Legal method

The legal tools that cut across both fields, and how AI changes the way we study law itself.

  • Technical standards and soft law
  • Comparative regulation across jurisdictions
  • International and transnational governance
  • AI-assisted legal research and legal databases

How we work

Our projects start with a question that engineers, life scientists and lawyers share, and each discipline stays involved from the first draft to the last. Legal analysis is tested against how the technology actually works; technical design is tested against what the law will ask of it.

We aim for work that others can use: research articles, comparative data that others can build on, and policy analysis written for the people who make and apply the rules.

People

Zhengxi Zhu

Principal Investigator

Zhengxi is a DCL candidate at the Faculty of Law, McGill University, and a 2025–26 Doctoral Fellow of McGill's Research Group on Health and Law (RGHL). His dissertation, Between Crisis and Structure: Normative Effectiveness of Sovereign Equality in Global Health Governance, examines how narrative strategies shape the force of sovereign equality in global health governance. In 2026 he is a research intern at the UNIDROIT Library in Rome.

He was previously a research assistant at Tsinghua University's Institute for Studies on Artificial Intelligence and Law, working on health data and digital health regulation, and a research intern at the Center for Public Policy Research, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He holds a master's degree from the University of Bologna (110L/110 with honours) and an LL.B. from Gansu University of Political Science and Law, and is a member of the UNESCO Judicial Community.

  • H. Patrick Glenn Graduate Essay Prize, McGill Law, 2025–26
  • Aparna Roppel Graduate Scholarship; RGHL Doctoral Fellowship (FRQSC-funded)

RGHL fellows page

Yunbiao Wang

Co-Principal Investigator

Yunbiao is a PhD candidate and research assistant in the Department of Civil Engineering, McGill University, and previously studied at the Department of Traffic Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University. Her research uses physiological sensing, including EEG, PPG and pulse rate variability, with machine learning to assess pilot mental workload, flight training and driver fatigue. Her recent work reviews multimodal large language model agents across the transportation systems lifecycle and their policy implications.

ORCID 0000-0003-3147-6880

Join the lab

We welcome students and researchers from law, the life sciences, engineering and computer science. If your work sits between these fields, write to us with a short note on what you would like to work on.

Selected publications

Work by lab members, including work published before the lab was founded.

Yunbiao Wang

  1. 2026

    Jiangbo Yu, Ali Eslami, Jiyao Wang, Yunbiao Wang, Chengbo Zhang and Simon Paquette-Greenbaum. “Multimodal Large Language Model Agents Across Transportation Systems Lifecycle: Early-Stage Progress Review and Policy Implications.” Preprint, SSRN. doi:10.2139/ssrn.6806500

  2. 2026

    Chaozhe Jiang, Wenqian A, Tong Zhu, Chenyang Zhang, Wenbing Zhu, Yunbiao Wang, Shihan Luo and Hua Chen. “Physiological Responses of Novice Flight Trainees During Different Stages of Helicopter Simulation Training Based on Pulse Rate Variability.” Aviation. doi:10.3846/aviation.2026.27518

  3. 2025

    Yang Zhang, Yufan Chen, Yubo Jiao, Yunbiao Wang, Hua Chen, Tong Wang and Chaozhe Jiang. “Research on Driver Fatigue Detection via Feature Fusion.” Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering. doi:10.1139/cjce-2024-0377

  4. 2025

    W. Zhu, Y. Xie, Y. Wang, C. Zhang, J. Yuan, H. Chen, X. Zuo, C. Jiang and T. Wang. “Classification of Carrier-Based Aircraft Pilot Mental Workloads Based on Feature-Level Fusion and Decision-Level Fusion of PPG and EEG Signals.” The Aeronautical Journal. doi:10.1017/aer.2025.33

  5. 2024

    Yunbiao Wang, Chenyang Zhang, Chenglin Liu, Kun Liu, Fang Xu, Jixue Yuan, Chaozhe Jiang, Chuang Liu and Weiwei Cao. “Analysis on Pulse Rate Variability for Pilot Workload Assessment Based on Wearable Sensor.” Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries. doi:10.1002/hfm.21053

  6. 2023

    Chenglin Liu, Chenyang Zhang, Yunbiao Wang, Fang Xu, Jin He, Chaozhe Jiang and Xing Peng. “Identification of Pilots’ Mental Workload Under Different Flight Phases Based on a Portable EEG Device.” 7th International Conference on Transportation Information and Safety (ICTIS). doi:10.1109/ictis60134.2023.10243804

  7. 2023

    Wenbing Zhu, Chenyang Zhang, Chenglin Liu, Jiajun Yuan, Xinyi Li, Yunbiao Wang and Chaozhe Jiang. “Recognition of Pilot Mental Workload in the Simulation Operation of Carrier-Based Aircraft Using the Portable EEG.” Conference paper. doi:10.1145/3604383.3604391

Zhengxi Zhu

  1. 2024

    “Public Welfare Platform Building and Rural Public Service Provision: Innovative Practices of Chinese Social Organizations.” Presented at the ARNOVA conference, Yonsei University, on behalf of the Center for Public Policy Research, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

  2. 2023

    “Dilemma and Breakthrough: Personal Information Protection Models and Righting in China.” Bocconi Legal Papers. Read online

  3. 2023

    “The Origin of Forensic Science and Its Theoretical Implications” (co-authored). Forensic Culture Research, 4th series. China University of Political Science and Law Press.

  4. 2021–24

    Research briefings on health data law and digital health governance, including real-world data research in Europe, the United States and Japan, secondary use of health data in Germany and Finland, and internet medical platforms in China. Institute for Studies on Artificial Intelligence and Law, Tsinghua University.

  5.  

    “Analysis of the Problem of Infectious Disease Report Cards in China: An Example of the Novel Coronavirus Outbreak.” Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, Atlantis Press. doi:10.2991/assehr.k.220110.085

News

  • Uni-Law Lab is founded and uni-law.org goes live. Our first joint projects will be announced here.

  • Co-PI Yunbiao Wang and co-authors publish a study in Aviation on how novice helicopter trainees respond physiologically at different stages of simulator training, measured through pulse rate variability. Read the article

  • PI Zhengxi Zhu begins a research internship at the UNIDROIT Library in Rome.

  • Yunbiao Wang co-authors a preprint reviewing early progress on multimodal large language model agents across the transportation systems lifecycle, with a discussion of policy implications. Read on SSRN

  • Zhengxi Zhu receives McGill Law's H. Patrick Glenn Graduate Essay Prize.

  • Yunbiao Wang and co-authors publish a feature-fusion method for detecting driver fatigue in the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering. Read the article

Contact

For collaboration, research enquiries or joining the lab: