Fan Yang

Ph.D, Associate Professor

Email:fanyang115@hit.edu.cn

Research Area: NMR of RNA/protein; molecular mechanisms of protein/RNA enzymes.

Professional Experience

2017 – present   Associate Professor     

School of Life Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China    

2015 – 2017Acting Instructor                                                 

Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, USA 

2013 - 2015 Research Associate                                      

Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, USA 

2009 - 2013 Postdoctoral Fellow      

Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, USA 

Education

2004 - 2009 Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing, China

2000 - 2004 B.S. in Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, China

Research Interests

Exploring the structural basis of RNA-protein recognition and its structure-function relationship. My focus is on determining the structures of RNA-protein complexes by using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR).

Interested fields:

• The  structural basis of regulation of microRNA processing by protein factors;

• Structure  biology of pre-mRNA 3’-end processing;

• The  structure and mechanism of small RNA as potential drug target in  pathogenic bacteria;

• Engineering  RNA-binding proteins and understanding protein-RNA recognition  specificity;

• Molecular  mechanisms of protein/RNA enzymes.

Recent Publications (since 2016)

1. Fan Yang, Peter Hsu, Susan Lee, Wen Yang, Derick Hoskinson, Weihao Xu, Claire Moore, Gabriele Varani*. The C-terminus of Pcf11 forms a novel zinc-finger structure that plays an essential role in mRNA 3’-end processing.RNA23 (1), 98-107, 2017.

2. Yu Chen†, Lorena Zubovic†,Fan Yang†, Katherine Godin, Tom Pavelitz, Javier Castellanos, Paolo Macchi*, Gabriele Varani*. Rbfox proteins regulate microRNA biogenesis by sequence specific binding to their precursors and target downstream Dicer.Nucleic Acids Research 44 (9), 4381-4395, 2016.† co-first authors.

3. Yu Chen,Fan Yang, Lorena Zubovic, Tom Pavelitz, Wen Yang, Katherine Godin, Suxin Zheng, Paolo Macchi, Gabriele Varani*. Targeted inhibition of oncogenic miR-21 maturation with designed RNA-binding proteins.Nature Chemical Biology 12 (9), 717-723, 2016.

4. Wen Yang†, Peter L. Hsu†,Fan Yang, Jae-Eun Song, Gabriele Varani*. Reconstitution of the CstF complex unveils a regulatory role for CstF-50 in its recognition of 3’-end processing signals.Nucleic Acids Research 46 (2), 493-503, 2018.*NAR Breakthrough Article

5. Corey M Nemec,Fan Yang, Joshua M. Gilmore, Corinna Hintermair, Yi-Hsuan Ho, Sandra C. Tseng, Martin Heidemann, Ying Zhang, Laurence Florens, Audrey P. Gasch, Dirk Eick, Michael P. Washburn, Gabriele Varani, and Aseem Z. Ansaria*. Different phospho-isoforms of RNA polymerase II engage the Rtt103 termination factor in a structurally analogous manner.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114 (20), E3944-E3953, 2017.

6. Ravi P. Barnwal,Fan Yang, and Gabriele Varani*. Applications of NMR to structure determination of RNAs large and small.Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics 628, 42-56, 2017.