Biography

Dr. Yanan Yu obtained her Master’s degree from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati, USA. She then completed her postdoctoral training at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In December 2021, she joined Xuzhou Medical University, where she is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Genetics at the School of Basic Medical Sciences and Life Sciences.

Dr. Yu has a broad teaching portfolio, offering undergraduate courses including Genetics, Medical Genetics, and Medical Genomics, as well as Medical Genetics for international students. At the graduate level, she teaches Biomolecular Interactions and AI and Medical Omics Data Analytics. Her teaching excellence has been recognized with multiple awards, including the First Prize in the Jiangsu Provincial Teaching Competition for International Students, the Grand Prize in Xuzhou Medical University’s English Teaching Competition, and the Second Prize in the University’s Teaching Innovation Competition.

Her research mainly focuses on the mechanisms of initiation and malignant progression of neurofibromatosis type I (NF1) and the development of targeted therapeutic strategies for this disease. She has served as Principal Investigator for a project funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and a key research project supported by the Xuzhou Municipal Health Commission. Her research work has been published in prominent peer-reviewed journals, including Acta Neuropathologica, Acta Neuropathologica Communications, Developmental Cell, Science Advances, Oncogene, and Cellular Oncology.

Publications (Recent 5 years)

1. Minghui Yue, Yixiao Wang, Jiabao Gu, Cheng Zhang, Yang Chen, Aruna Gao, Kwangmin Choi, Zhaoming Wu, Zhichao Wang, Jay Pundavela, Nancy Ratner & Yanan Yu, Decreased PP2A expression and activity represent a therapeutic target for plexiform neurofibroma. Acta Neuropathol Commun 14, 147 (2026)；

2. Yanan Yu, Chengjiang Wei, Minghui Yue, Cheng Zhang, Yixiao Wang & Zhichao Wang, From benign neurofibromas to malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNST): a gaming among multiple factors, Cellular Oncology, 48, 841–857 (2025)；

3. Youjin Na, Ashley Hall, Yanan Yu, Liang Hu, Kwangmin Choi, Jake A. Burgard, Sara Szabo, Gang Huang, Nancy Ratner and Jianqiang Wu. Runx1/3-driven adaptive endoplasmic reticulum stress pathways contribute to neurofibromagenesis, Oncogene 42, 1038–1047 (2023);

4. Yaowu Zheng, Quangang Chen, He Zhang, Xin Li, Salah Adlat, Yanan Yu, Noor Bahadar, Rajiv Kumar Sah, Wei Xu, Ankang Hu, Xiaodan Lu, Renjin Chen, Yang Chen, VEGFB167 drives tumor progression by modulating the immune microenvironment, International Immunopharmacology, Volume 161, (2025)；

5. Tian Y, Li W, Zhai Q, Yu Y, Yuan J, Ma Y, Yang J, Li M, Chang W, Li W, Huang K, Sun C, Zeng C, Sun Y, Gu J, Zhang H, Li D, Yu Y, Hu L, Zhang P, Ma B, Zheng J, Li P, Guo F, Sun Y. Pharmacological Targeting of DHHC9-Mediated STRN4 Palmitoylation to Suppress YAP-Driven Cancer Metastasis. J Cell Mol Med. (2025) Sep;29(17):e70815.