Yu Chen Email & Phone Number

1. Develop cellular models of Parkinson's disease using patient-derived iPSCs.2. Investigate genetic risk factors that contribute to the development of Parkinson's disease.

Rockville, Md

1. Assay development for high-throughput screening and combinational matrix screening of small molecule libraries using human pluripotent stem cells and hPSC-derived cells.2. Cellular mechanism of action studies of chemically optimized compounds3. CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing in human pluripotent stem cells to create reporter lines and model diseases.

Bethesda, Md

1. Revealed early segregation of different sets of endolysosomal proteins (cargos) in the Golgi complex as a new mechanism of sorting, which precedes the interaction of cargos with adaptor proteins and their export in distinct populations of transport carriers. The TGN has been classically regarded as the Golgi subcompartment where newly synthesized proteins destined for secretory vesicles, the PM, endosomes, and lysosomes are sorted into distinct populations of transport carriers. In this classical view, all cargo proteins remain mixed throughout the Golgi complex until they are packaged into their corresponding transport carriers through the recognition of their cytosolic sorting signals by adaptors such as the AP-1 and GGA proteins. Using super-resolution microscopy and the RUSH system to synchronize cargo release from the endoplasmic reticulum, I visualized anterograde trafficking with high spatio-temporal resolution. Cargos were observed to undergo progressive segregation into distinct Golgi domains before their export into distinct transport carriers. This segregation depended on the transmembrane and luminal domains of the cargos rather than their cytosolic sorting signals.2. Discovered EARP (Endosome-Associated Recycling Protein) as the first multisubunit tethering factor specifically involved in endocytic recycling. EARP was identified using tandem affinity purification followed by mass spectrometry. Applying genetic replacement strategy to get around the difficulty of imaging protein complexes consisting of multiple subunits, I localized EARP to recycling endosomes and demonstrate its important function in endocytic recycling using TIRF and spin-disk confocal microscopy. First-author publication in Nature Cell Biology is highly recommended by Faulty 1000 and featured by Nature Review Molecular Cell Biology.

Bethesda, Md

1. Innovated an advanced imaging assay utilizing pH-sensitive fluorescent probe and total internal fluorescence microscopy to highlight GLUT4 vesicle fusion at the cell membrane and identified Rab10 as the key Rab protein mediating GLUT4 delivery to the cell membrane in response to insulin stimulation. First-author publication in Journal of Cell Biology is highly recommended by Faulty 1000.2. Established a cell line model stably expressing a fluorescent probe for high content imaging screening of drugs that promote glucose uptake.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Biophysics

Bachelor'S Degree, Biomedical/Medical Engineering