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General Information

Full Name Yajie Zhao
Languages Chinese, English

Education

  • 2019 - 2022
    PhD in Medical Science at MRC Epidemiology Unit
    University of Cambridge, Cambridge
    • Thesis title: Detection, causes and consequences of sex chromosome mosaicism
  • 2018 - 2019
    MSc in Mathematical Sciences
    University of Oxford, Oxford
    • Dissertation title: The RAPIDD Ebola forecasting challenge epidemiological insights and statistical performance
  • 2015 - 2018
    BSc in Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics and Economics (MORSE)
    University of Warwick, Coventry
    • grade: 1st Class Honours

Experience

  • 2022 - 2025
    MRC Postdoctoral Fellow
    MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge
    • This post plans to utilise such data in the UK Biobank study to identify rare, protein-coding, genetic variants associated with obesity to highlight novel genes and biological mechanisms. This work will involve developing new computational pipelines and methods to perform quality control and analysis on billions of data points in half a million study participants. Genes highlighted by these analyses will then be shared with experimental collaborators, both internally in Cambridge and externally, to gain further mechanistic insight in animal and cellular models.
  • 2019 - 2022
    Graduate Student
    MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge
    • Testing and implementing bioinformatic software to estimate somatic mosaicism; Designing pipeline to conduct exome-wide analysis; Undertaking the microarray-data based genome-wide analysis and sequencing-data based exome-wide analysis; Building collaborations with other large cohorts including China Kadoorie Biobank and Taiwan Biobank and wet labs.
  • 2022 - Present
    Initiator and Organiser
    Human Genetics Network
    • Building the communication network for the researchers interested in human genetics; Organising the weekly talks delivered by the world-leading researchers and the early-career scholars in human genetics and related areas; Managing the social media accounts to advertise talks and attract more researchers to join the network.
  • 2016 - 2022
    Part-time Assistant Editor
    The-Intellectual
    • Interviewing the specialists about scientific topics; Introducing the new progress in science on social media; Managing a social media account that has 2.7 million followers; Providing reliable scientific knowledge and information for the Chinese audience.

Honors and Awards

  • 2022
    • Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad

Academic Interests

  • Mosaic loss of the X/Y chromosome.
    • Mosaic loss of the X/Y chromosome (mLOX/Y) is the most common form of somatic mosaicism for females and males, respectively. The genetic causes and phenotypic consequences of these events are still unclear. I have developed a formula to combine different mosaic loss of the X/Y chromosome(mLOX/Y) measurement based on SNP-array and high throughput sequencing data and applied it on large trans-ethnic cohorts to reveal the genetic architecture of mLOX/Y through GWAS and Exome-wide burden analysis. Using this approach, I have found genes associated with mLOX/Y. Disruption of these genes can substantially increase the risk to have mLOY and my future work will combine dry lab work and wet lab work to investigate the mechanism behind mLOX/Y.
  • How rare variants affect human traits.
    • The decreased cost of sequencing and its application to large research cohorts provide a chance to systematically explore how rare coding variants affect human traits. I have designed, implemented, and utilised software to identify genetic associations in a cohort of 200K humans from the UK Biobank study. I am interested in applying these tools to larger and more diverse populations to identify gene-phenotype associations and develop these findings into novel therapeutic targets.