Lab welcomes new rotation students Jianjian Guo and Yubao Cheng.

Jianjian is a first-year PhD student of the MCGD track. She graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China, and used CRISPR knock out screen in search for novel T cell immune suppressor against cancer in her undergraduate thesis research while visiting Yale. During her first rotation in Andrew Xiao lab, she designed a CRISPR activation screen for DNA N6mA methyltransferase in human chemoresistant lung cancer. For her second rotation, she joined Wang lab, hoping to explore how DNA and RNA imaging techniques can be applied to analyze cancer related genome instability and heterogeneity. Outside science, Jianjian enjoys Sci-fi, psychology, movies and music. She’s also a dog lover and a beginner to kpop dancing.

Yubao is also a first-year PhD student of the MCGD track. Yubao was born in Xi’an, China, and he earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Science and Technology of China, same as Jianjian. In his previous research, he studied protein modifications in mitosis. He found that dynamic acetylation of kinetochore protein Hec1 by Tip60 could regulate microtubule-kinetochore attachment for accurate chromosome segregation in mitosis. Later, he went to Bing Ren’s lab at UCSD as an undergraduate intern and used a high throughput CRISPR/Cas9 screen to identify cis-regulatory elements for gene regulation. With a broad interest in the mechanism of gene regulation, Yubao is particularly excited in using and developing cutting-edge imaging technologies to study epigenetics and chromatin structure in gene regulation. In his spare time, Yubao likes playing table tennis and cooking.

Welcome, Jianjian and Yubao!