Mentor: Scott Rothbart, Ph.D.

Research Focus: Mechanisms and therapeutic vulnerabilities of DNMTi-associated epigenetic plasticity

Experience: Yanqing earned her M.D. from Sun Yat-sen University and completed a residency at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, becoming a licensed imaging and nuclear medicine clinician. In Dr. Yan-Song Lin’s group, she worked on a clinical study on thyroid cancer metastasis and contributed to phase II/III trials of apatinib, identifying mutation-dependent treatment responses. These experiences sparked her interest in cancer biology and drug resistance, leading her to pursue a Ph.D. at Van Andel Institute Graduate School, where she studies epigenetic plasticity and therapeutic vulnerabilities of colorectal cancer under DNA hypomethylation therapy.

Undergraduate Institution: Sun Yat-sen University

Master’s Degree Institution: Peking Union Medical College

Hometown: Shandong Province, China

Publications

*Completed during time as a VAI graduate student

*Panzeri I, Fagnocchi L, Apostle S, Tompkins M, Wolfrum E, Madaj Z, Hostetter G, Liu Y, Schaefer K, Yang C H, Bergsma A, Drougard A, Dror E, PERMUTE, Chandler DP, Schramek D, Triche TJ Jr, Pospisilik JA. 2025. TRIM28 dependent developmental heterogeneity determines cancer susceptibility through distinct epigenetic states. Nat Cancer 6(2):385–403.

*Liu Y, Hrit JA, Chomiak AA, Stransky S, Hoffman JR, Tiedemann RL, Wiseman AK, Kariapper LS, Dickson BM, Worden EJ, Fry CJ, Sidoli S, Rothbart SB. 2025. DNA hypomethylation promotes UHRF1 and SUV39H1/H2 dependent crosstalk between H3K18ub and H3K9me3 to reinforce heterochromatin states. Mol Cell 85(2):394–412.e12.

*Chomiak AA, Tiedemann RL, Liu Y, Kong X, Cui Y, Wiseman AK, Thurlow KE, Cornett EM, Topper MJ, Baylin SB, Rothbart SB. 2024. Select EZH2 inhibitors enhance viral mimicry effects of DNMT inhibition through a mechanism involving NFAT:AP 1 signaling. Sci Adv 10(13):eadk4423.