Introduction

Yiwu Yao is a medicinal chemist, drug discoverer who is experienced in developing novel small molecules target disease-causing protein, especially epigenetic regulators. He is also a skillful organic chemist experienced in the total synthesis of complex natural products. He currently works as a Research Investigator at the University of Michigan in Tomasz Cierpicki and Jolanta Grembecka lab. Our lab was the first to discover menin-KTM2A inhibitors for AML treatment, which led to a recently FDA-approved drug Revumenib.

Professional Profile
• Advanced a first-in-class project from hit to pre-clinical study.
• Productive researcher with strong publication record in top-tier journals such as Nature Chemical Biology and the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
• Excellent communication skills to interact with researchers specialized in structural, chemical, cell, and animal studies.

Research Interests

• Development of small molecules to inhibit epigenetic proteins function in cancer cells.
• Developing small molecules targeting PRC1 core subunit Ring1A/B.
• Identification and development of small molecule HDACs inhibitors.
• Total synthesis of bioactive natural products.

Selected Publications

1. Yao, Y.*, Simes ML*, Ying W, Zhao Q, Winkler A, Shukla S, Gray F, Nikolaidis C, Hewett G, Grembecka J, Cierpicki T. Development of PRC1 inhibitors employing fragment-based approach and NMR-guided optimization. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2025.
2. Shukla, S.*, Ying, W.*, Gray, F.*, Yao, Y.*, Simes, M. L.*, Zhao, Q., Miao, H., Cho, H. J., González-Alonso, P., Winkler, A., Lund, G., Purohit, T., Kim, E., Zhang, X., Ray, J. M., He, S., Nikolaidis, C., Ndoj, J., Wang, J., Jaremko, Ł., Jaremko, M., Ryan, R. J. H., Guzman, M. L., Grembecka, J. & Cierpicki, T. Small-molecule inhibitors targeting Polycomb repressive complex 1 RING domain. Nature Chemical Biology 17, 784-793, 2021.(*Equal contribution)
3. Yao, Yiwu, Zhengchao Tu, Chenzhong Liao, Zhen Wang, Shang Li, Hequan Yao, Zheng Li, and Sheng Jiang. Discovery of Novel Class I Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors with Promising in Vitro and in Vivo Antitumor Activities. J. Med. Chem., 58, 7672-7680, 2015.
4. Zhang, K.*, Liu, Z.*, Yao, Y.*, Qiu, Y., Li, F., Chen, D., Hamilton, D. J., Li, Z. & Jiang, S. Structure-Based Design of a Selective Class I Histone Deacetylase (HDAC) Near-Infrared (NIR) Probe for Epigenetic Regulation Detection in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC). Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 64, 4020-4033, 2021.(*equal contribution)
5. Ma, Nan*, Yiwu Yao*, Bing-Xin Zhao, Ying Wang, Wen-Cai Ye, and Sheng Jiang. Total synthesis of securinega alkaloids (-)-norsecurinine, (-)-niruroidine and (-)-flueggine A. Chem. Commun. (Cambridge, U. K.), 50, 9284-9287, 2014. (*Equal contribution)

Interests