Wolfson College Cambridge: Dr Yichen Wang

Position Governing Body Fellow Junior Research Fellow
School Wellcome Sanger Institute
Email yichen.wang@sanger.ac.uk
X Profile @_YichenWang_
Department link Wellcome Sanger Institute

Yichen is a computational biologist focusing on understanding the normal aging process as well as early cancer development. She is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College.

Yichen graduated from Peking University, China with a BSc in Biological Science and Applied Mathematics. She then pursued a doctorate in Computational Biology at the University of Cambridge (funded by Wellcome Trust), and meanwhile, a part-time online Master's in Computer Science with Georgia Institute of Technology. Her PhD explored mutational processes in normal human tissues under the supervision of Professor Sir Mike Stratton and Dr Peter Campbell. She is now a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cancer, Ageing and Somatic Mutation Programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

As a genome biologist, Yichen studies changes in our DNA that occur after birth, called somatic mutations. While many of these changes are harmless, some can trigger diseases like cancer. Somatic mutations also serve as genetic footprints, recording the history of cells, from environmental exposures to the natural process of ageing. Analysing these footprints provides clues about the causes and developmental trajectory of diseases.

Yichen’s research focuses on understanding how somatic mutations in normal tissues contribute to the very early stages of cancer development and ageing. Her current work, based on bioinformatics analysis of normal kidney genomes collected from different geographic regions with varying kidney cancer risks, has demonstrated how the genomes of certain normal tissues can serve as a sensitive ‘reporter’ for exogenous mutagens, helping to discover previously unknown cancer risk factors.

Her past research, along with that of others, also suggests both cancer and ageing are affected by factors beyond DNA mutations, which are yet unknown. To address this, her next focus will be exploring how DNA methylation impacts DNA mutation rates, ageing and cancer risk. By employing advanced sequencing techniques to analyse methylation and DNA mutation patterns in normal tissues simultaneously, she aims to uncover signatures of methylation changes, and how they may explain for ageing and differences in cancer risk beyond mutation burden alone.

What's on

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Wolfson Bulb Trail

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