Asia’s Rising Scientists: Wan Yue

Wan Yue’s research could help enhance our understanding of how RNA functions in different cellular systems.

Wan Yue
Senior Research Scientist
Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS)
Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)

AsianScientist (Dec. 14, 2016) – For Wan Yue, senior research scientist and junior principal investigator at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Genome Institute of Singapore, the divide between academia and industry is an artificial one that can be seamlessly crossed.

Wan, who studies functional ribonucleic acid (RNA) elements in transcriptomes through the genome-wide detection of RNA structures, has produced work that has been published in top academic journals and also resulted in commercial products.

In 2014, she became the first Singaporean to win the Branco Weiss Fellowship. In the following year, she was recognized with Singapore’s Young Scientist Award in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at the President’s Science and Technology Awards. Most recently, Wan was one of two recipients of the 2016 L’Oréal Singapore For Women In Science National Fellowship.

Below, Wan shares with Asian Scientist Magazine how she persevered even when everyone around her told her that what she wanted to do couldn’t be done, and her ideas on what can be done to help graduate students find careers outside the lab.

  1. How would you summarize your research in a tweet (140 characters)?

    My research focuses on developing and using new genomics technologies to study how RNA uses its structure and interacts with other cellular factors to perform its functions.


  2. Describe a completed research project that you are proudest of.

    We recently published a paper in Molecular Cell whereby we developed a new strategy to map pair-wise RNA RNA interactions genome-wide. This work enables biologists to look at RNA interactomes and signaling networks, which was previously not possible. I was really excited about the work not only because it is the first publication from my lab but also a publication whereby all the authors are from Singapore.


  3. What do you hope to accomplish with your research in the next decade?

    I hope to better understand how RNAs work inside the cell and identify new cool functions that RNA perform in vivo.


  4. Who (or what) motivated you to go into your field of study?

    I joined Howard Chang’s lab as a graduate student in Stanford University and he was very interested in making anything from low throughput to high throughput and also in studying the functions of long non-coding RNAs. Work in his lab enabled me to nurture my passion for developing genomics technologies.


  5. What is the biggest adversity that you experienced in your research?

    My first project was to develop a new high throughput technique to probe RNA secondary structures genome-wide. It was a challenging project which bridges multiple disciplines, including genomics and biochemistry. Many people did not believe that it could work, and they expressed that to me directly. It was difficult for me because I was a young graduate student then, but I persevered because I was excited about the project.


  6. What are the biggest challenges facing the academic research community today, and how can we fix them?

    There are too few faculty positions compared to the number of postdoctoral positions and so many young scientists struggle to have their own labs. Reducing the graduate student intake may help. Diversifying graduate student training, such that graduate students gain other skill-sets in business or consulting will greatly broaden their career options should they decide to leave the academia.


  7. If you had not become a scientist, what would you have become instead?

    I would have been a medical doctor. I like to make a positive impact on people’s lives and I think health is arguably the most important asset in anybody’s life.



  8. Wan Yue with her family. Credit: Wan Yue


  9. Outside of work, what do you do to relax?

    I like to read and go for walks. I am a mother of two young children. I also enjoy playing with my kids.


  10. If you had the power and resources to eradicate any world problem using your research, which one would you solve?

    I would develop new drug targets to curb the spread of infectious diseases.


  11. What advice would you give to aspiring researchers in Asia?

    Try to be integrated into the international community. Believe in yourself and put in 110 percent in whatever you do.



This article is from a monthly series called Asia’s Rising Scientists. Click here to read other articles in the series.

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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine; Photo: L’Oréal Singapore.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.

Asian Scientist Magazine is an award-winning science and technology magazine that highlights R&D news stories from Asia to a global audience. The magazine is published by Singapore-headquartered Wildtype Media Group.

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