Principal Investigator
Gaowen Liu, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator / Lab Head
Dr. Liu received her Master’s from NUS (Dr. Yuehui He, TLL) studying epigenetic regulation, and her Ph.D. in 2016 from NTU/A*STAR (Dr. Giulia Rancati), publishing a first-author paper in Cell on yeast adaptive evolution to essential gene deletions. She conducted HFSP-funded postdoctoral training at the University of Lausanne (Prof. Sophie Martin) studying mating gene fusion evolutionary kinetics. In addition to her scientific training, Dr. Liu earned an Executive MBA in Innovation Strategy from EPFL. A recipient of the Ray Wu Prize, she established her laboratory at iSynBio, SIAT in 2020.
gaowen.liu at siat.ac.cn →
Postdoctoral Researchers
Hua Tiang Tan, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Ph.D. from USM (2021) with research stints at NAIST (Japan). Specializes in protein engineering, structural determination (with Prof. Toshio Hakoshima), and metabolic pathway engineering to optimize polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthesis pathways.
You Kiat Ng (Patrick), Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Ph.D. from NAIST, Japan (2025) studying SecDF complexes under Prof. Tomoya Tsukazaki. Joined the lab in May 2026 to focus on protein engineering, automation-driven libraries, and expanding synthetic biological PHA systems.
Research Assistants
Yuanyuan Liu
Research Assistant
BSc from Sun Yat-Sen University and Master’s from the University of Edinburgh (2021) specialized in LC-MS methods. Investigates early aneuploidy tracking dynamics under severe stress environments like essential gene loss.
Yihong Wang
Research Assistant
Graduated from Lanzhou University with a Master’s in Public Health (2023). Focuses on decoding single-cell spatial-temporal transcriptomic regulations and networks in fission yeast during sexual development cycles.
Graduate Students
Yang Chen
Ph.D. Candidate
Master’s from Southwest University (2021). Transitioned from Lab RA to Ph.D. track in late 2022. She leads the prm1 evolution project and the lab’s lipidomics research, focusing on the genetic analysis of yeast adaptive evolution and membrane biophysics during cell fusion.
Lin Bi
Ph.D. Candidate
Bioinformatics track from the University of Queensland. She serves as the lab’s primary biostatistician, supporting multiple pipelines (scRNA-seq, Hi-C, LRS-seq). Investigates genomic-epigenetic interfaces and co-authors heavily on reproductive trade-off evolution.
Xiaoli Fan
Ph.D. Candidate
Master’s from Lanzhou University (2021). Her research uniquely bridges two areas: the epigenetic regulation of pombe evolution/adaptation, and metabolic engineering projects synthesizing 4HB polymers via C. necator templates.
Yiqing Zhang
Ph.D Candidate
Bachelor’s from Nanjing Tech University (2023) and UCAS-SIAT Joint Program. Developing high-throughput automation pipelines to construct the first S. pombe endogenous locus GFP-tagging whole-genome library.
Lab Alumni
Yiming Lei
M.S. Alumnus (Graduated Jun 2026)
Bioengineering track from Harbin Institute of Technology, SUSTech-Advanced Institute joint program candidate. Specialized in structural biopolymer pathway maps and sequencing analysis protocols.
Shuang Liang
M.S. Alumna (Graduated Jun 2025)
Dissected multi-generation adaptive traits and selection profiles in experimental yeast populations.
Manying He
M.S. Alumna (Graduated Jun 2026)
Advanced our metabolic engineering profiles mapping out optimized microbial bioplastic systems metrics.
Chengyuan Li
Former Intern (Jul 2022 – Aug 2023)
Constructed NGS, LRS, and sc-seq pipeline environments during his bachelor’s training. Graduated from UCLA and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at Rockefeller University.
Yuan Miao
Former Technician (Jul 2024 – Feb 2025)
An alumna graduated from Ohio State University who provided exceptional expertise in lab management workflows, process optimization, and operations support.
Tianxi Li
Former Biostatistician (Nov 2023 – May 2024)
Spearheaded data analysis and structural annotation sets for yeast mating scRNA-seq parameters. Subsequently transitioned to NUS for her Master’s degree.
Jun Peng
Former Research Assistant (Jan 2021 – Sep 2022)
The founding member of the lab who built our initial infrastructure and experimental protocols. He led key evolutionary screens, microscopy workflows, and fluorescent strain construction before moving to a teaching career in Zhuhai.
Gaowen Liu Lab 