Education

2002-2006, B.S. in Biology, Nankai University, Tianjin, China

2006-2012, Ph.D. in Cell, Stem Cell, and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical CampusSciences

Academic Experience

2012-2015, Postdoctoral fellow, Dept. of Genetics, Harvard Medical School1997-1998

2015-2018, Senior Scientist, Group Lead of HDR in HSC, CRISPR Therapeutics Inc.

2018- Professor, Medical Research Institute, Wuhan University, China

2019- PI, Frontier Science Center for Immunology and Metabolism, Wuhan University

2023- PI, Taikang Center for Life and Medical Sciences, Wuhan University

Social Service

Associate Editor, Cell Insight (2021-)

Research Overview

Our ultimate goal is to translate CRISPR technologies into cell therapy by either directly restoring pathogenic mutations within cells or by manipulating immune cell to enhance its anti-tumor ability for cancer treatment. We aim to build and engineer a complete suite of toolbox for cellular genome manipulation that can be safely delivered into primary cells for precision medicine.

Area of interest:

1. CRISPR/Cas9 toolbox discovery and engineering;

2. Non-viral delivery of macromolecules for cell therapy

3. CRISPR/Cas9 mediated cell therapy including immunotherapies and genetic disorders;

Representative Publications

1. W Han#, HY Qiu#, S Sun#, ZC Fu#, GQ Wang#, X Qian, L Wang, X Zhai, J Wei, Wang Y, Guo YL, Cao GH, Ji RJ, Zhang YZ, Ma H, Wang H, Zhao M, Wu J, Bi LL, Chen QB, Li Z, Yu L, Mou X, Yin H, Yang L*, Chen J*, Yang B*, Zhang Y*. Base editing of the HBG promoter induces potent fetal hemoglobin expression with no detectable offtarget mutations in human HSCs. Cell Stem Cell, 30,1-16, Dec 7th, 2023

2. J An #, CP Zhang#, HY Qiu#, HX Zhang#, QB Chen, YM Zhang, XL Lei, CX Zhang, H Yin*, Y Zhang*. Enhancement of the viability of T cells electroporated with DNA via osmotic dampening of the DNA-sensing cGAS-STING pathway. Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2024 Feb;8(2):149-164.

3. CP Zhang, HY Qiu, CX Zhang, YM Zhang, YZ Zhang, H Yin, KQ Zhang*, Y Zhang*. Efficient non-viral delivery of macromolecules in human primary hematopoietic stem cells and lymphocytes. Journal of Molecular and Cell Biology, 2023 Aug 3;15(3)

4. HX Zhang#, CX Zhang#, SH Lu, XH Tong, K Zhang, H Yin*, Y Zhang*. Cas12a-based one-pot SNP detection with high accuracy. Cell Insight, (2023): 100080.doi.org/10.1016/j.cellin.2023.100080

5. YJ Shi#, M Duan#, JM Ding#, FQ Wang, LL Bi, CX Zhang, YZ Zhang, JY Duan, AH Huang, XL Lei, H Yin, Y Zhang*. DNA topology regulates PAM-Cas9 interaction and DNA unwinding to enable near PAMless cleavage by thermophilic Cas9. Molecular Cell, Nov 3;82(21):4160-4175, 2022

6. HY Qiu, RJ Ji, Y Zhang*. Current advances of CRISPR-Cas technology in cell therapy. Cell Insight, (2022): 100067doi.org/10.1016/j.cellin.2022.100067

7. SH Lu#, XH Tong#, Y Han#, K Zhang, YZ Zhang, QB Chen, JY Duan, XL Lei, MH Huang, Y Qiu, DY Zhang, X Zhou, Y Zhang* and Hao Yin*. Fast and sensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA using suboptimal protospacer adjacent motifs for Cas12a. Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2022 Mar;6(3):286-297, 2022