Gaowen Liu, Lab head

Gaowen Liu received her Master degree in 2012 from National University of Singapore (NUS) for her study of epigenetic regulation of FLC locus in Arabidopsis of Dr. Yuehui He at the Temasek life science Laboratory (TLL).  She then joined the group of Dr. Giulia Rancati at Institute of Medical biology, A*STAR to systematically study adaptive evolution of budding yeast to the deletion of essential genes, where she published first author paper in Cell and received her PhD in 2016 from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. She obtained postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Prof. Sophie Martin at University of Lausanne in Switzerland, studying fusion efficiency evolution to the deletion of essential mating genes. She received prestigious Long-term postdoctoral fellowship from Human Frontier Science Project (HFSP) for her postdoctoral training. She won Ray Wu prize, national excellent oversea student award and Kaluza prize finalist in 2016. She became a PI in SIAT since 2021

Hua Tiang Tan, Postdoc

He obtained his Bachelor of Science in Microbiology from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in 2016 and completed his Ph.D. under the guidance of Prof. Dr. K. Sudesh Kumar at the same university, graduating in 2021. His Ph.D. research primarily focused on genes and metabolic pathways related to polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthesis. During his Ph.D. studies, he spent 14 months at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) in Japan, working on the structural determination of PHA synthesis-related genes under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Toshio Hakoshima. After obtaining his Ph.D. in February 2021, he continued his research as a postdoctoral researcher at the Ecobiomaterial Research Laboratory, USM, under the mentorship of Prof. Dr. K. Sudesh Kumar. His work involved engineering bacterial strains to improve the quality and productivity of synthesized PHA. In March 2022, he relocated to the Structural Biology and Protein Engineering Laboratory at NAIST, rejoining Prof. Dr. Toshio Hakoshima as a postdoctoral researcher. His research at NAIST focused on the structural determination and protein engineering of genes related to PHA synthesis. He left Japan in July 2023 and joined the lab in September 2023.

Yang Chen, PhD student

In 2021, she received a master’s degree in genetics from Southwest University, China. During the postgraduate period, she mainly engaged in the molecular biology of plants, study of plant epigenetic regulation in Arabidopsis thaliana. She first joined the Liu Lab in June 2021 as a research assistant and has been a Phd student since Sep 2022. She works on genomic and genetics analysis of yeast adaptive evolution to an important fusion gene.

Lin Bi, PhD student

She received a Bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from Beijing University of Chemical Technology in 2019 and mainly focused on the study of Efficient biosynthesis. From 2019 to 2022, she studied molecular biology and bioinformatics successively in the University of Queensland, and did a research project on sequencing analysis. She joined the Liu lab in April, 2022, working on industrial strains genomic variation and mating preference, specialized in bioinformatic analysis eg sc-seq, RNA-seq, LRS-seq, NGS and Hi-C data. She started her Phd since Aug 2023, worked on genomic and epigenetic interplay in evolution and single cell spatial-temporal regulation of pombe cells during sexual development and mating.

Xiaoli Fan, PhD student

She graduated from Lanzhou University in 2021 with a Master degree in botany, focusing on the transcriptional regulation mechanism of chloride from roots to shoots in Arabidopsis thaliana, and identifying candidate genes with related functions by RNA-seq and performing preliminary functional elucidation. She joined the lab in Sep 2022. She focused on epigenetic regulation of pombe cells and also 4HB synthesis by C.nector.

Yihong Wang, Research Assistant

Yihong graduated from Lanzhou University with a Master’s degree in Public Health in June 2023. During her time at the university, she primarily worked on an international collaborative project with the University of Adelaide, focusing on the adaptive evolution of yeast. Her research aimed to enhance fermentation potential and efficiency by utilizing alternative nitrogen sources. As a result of her efforts, she successfully isolated seven strains of yeast that exhibited outstanding performance in various aspects. Yihong joined in the lab in July 2023 and worked on single cell spatial-temporal regulation of pombe cells during sexual development and mating.

Yuanyuan Liu, Research Assistant

Yuanyuan obtained her BSc degree in Biotechnology at Sun Yat-Sen University in 2020, where she worked on building rodent disease models with CRISPR/Cas9. She completed her postgraduate degree in Biotechnology from the University of Edinburgh in 2021, and mainly focused on the optimization of an LC-MS method. Yuanyuan joined in the lab in July 2023. She mainly worked on early aneuploidy development of cells facing extreme stressed like essential gene loss.

Yiqing Zhang, Master student

In 2023, she received a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from Nanjing Tech University, and then participated in the joint training program of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences – Advanced Institute. She joined Liu Laboratory to study in September 2023, mainly studying systems biology of the fission yeast and now focusing on the automation pipeline to construct first pombe endogenous locus GFP tagging whole genome library.

Yiming Lei, Master student

In 2023, he received a bachelor’s’s degree in bioengineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, and then participated in the joint training program of Southern University of Science and Technology – Advanced Institute. He joined Liu Laboratory to study in September 2023, mainly studying sequencing analysis.