Yi Yang, Chemical Biology & Therapeutics

Chemical Biology & Therapeutics 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

My lab has been working on adapting, optimizing and developing robust gene editing tools for drug discovery programs at Novartis. We have successfully implemented zinc finger nuclease (ZFN), transcription activator-like effector nuclease (TALEN) and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR associated protein 9 (Cas9) mediated gene targeting methodologies in multiple model systems including zebrafish, mice, human embryonic stem (ES) cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Our goal is to establish a high throughput genome engineering platform and apply it for discovery of novel therapeutic strategies.

Selected Publications

DNA sequencing and CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing for target validation in mammalian cells.
Smurnyy Y, Cai M, Wu H, McWhinnie E, Tallarico JA, Yang Y, Feng Y.
Nat. Chem. Biol. 2014, Aug. 10(8):623-5.

Targeted genome editing tools for disease modeling and gene therapy.
Cai M, Yang Y.
Curr Gene Ther. 2014 Feb;14(1):2-9.

Obligate ligation-gated recombination (ObLiGaRe): custom-designed nuclease-mediated targeted integration through nonhomologous end joining.
Maresca M, Lin VG, Guo N, Yang Y.
Genome Res. 2013 Mar: 23:539-546.