Principal Investigator
Zhijian Qian
Zhijian Qian Ph.D. is a tenured full Professor in the Department of Medicine, at the University of Florida. Before that, he had been serving as a tenured Associate Professor of medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago for several years.
Dr. Qian received his Ph.D. degree from Shanghai Institute of Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Science, China, and then conducted postdoc training at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago. He established his independent research laboratory in 2010 in the department of Medicine at University of Illinois at Chicago.
Dr. Qian is a scholar of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (2018) and Research of the year. His research has been supported by multiple RO1 grants from NIH and other private foundations.
Postdocs
Post-Doc
Fang Yu
Dr. Fang Yu received his Ph.D. degree at the Institute of biomedical sciences, East China Normal University. He mainly focused on the epigenetic studies and protein post-translational modifications (PTMs), particularly protein SUMOylation and its role in transcriptional regulation during his Ph.D. stage. After that, he joined Dr. Qian’s lab as a postdoc in 2018. Since then he shifted his research directions to work on deciphering the basic mechanisms for RNA m6A methylation and its role in tumorigenesis and leukemogenesis.
Post-Doc
Chunjie Yu
Dr. Chunjie Yu joined the Qian Laboratory in September 2015. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular biology from Wuhan University in China. Her graduate research focused on the effects of Chinese medicine, Bacalein treatment, on AMKL (Acute Megakaryoblastic Leukemia) and the investigation of how MPL mutations influence the development of Myeloproliferative Neoplasms. Her current research is focused on hematopoietic malignancy, megakaryocyte development, and combinational therapeutic strategies.
Post-Doc
Yafang Li
Dr. Yafang Li got her Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Hematology, Peking Union Medical College in China. She mainly focused on small molecular compounds targeting leukemia stem cells and the Hippo signaling pathway in hematopoiesis and leukemogenesis. She joined Dr. Qian’s lab in 2021 to continue studying the mechanisms and targeted therapy of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) and Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS).
POST-DOC
Jue Wang
Post-doc
Sanhui Gao
Postgraduate Students
Masters Student
Guanxuan Peng
Guanxuan Peng is a master’s student from the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology concentration in the College of Medicine at the University of Florida. She graduated from Fujian Normal University where she majored in Bioscience. Before joining Dr. Qian’s lab, she worked in a cancer research company, Carsgen Therapeutics, for one year.
Ph.D. Student
Yueying Liu
Undergraduate Student