Introduction

Yiwu Yao is a medicinal chemist, drug discoverer who is passionate about developing novel small molecules targeting oncoprotein. 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.

He is an author of 10+ peer-reviewed papers and 5 WO patents in the fields of medicinal chemistry and organic chemistry.

Yiwu Yao was born and raised in Huangshan, Anhui, China. In 2005, he went to the China Pharmaceutical University where he got his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Pharmacy and Medicinal Chemistry, respectively. In 2016, he finished his graduate study and earned his Ph.D. degree in Medicinal Chemistry from the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Science (GIBH, CAS), mentored by Dr. Sheng Jiang.

Research Interests

• Development of small molecules to inhibit epigenetic proteins function in cancer cells.
• Interfering protein-protein interactions using small molecules.
• 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. 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)
2. 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.
3. 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)
4. 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)
5. Zhang, Kuojun*, Yiwu Yao*, Zhengchao Tu*, Zhen Wang, Yatao Qiu, Dong Chen, Dale J. Hamilton, Zheng Li and Sheng Jiang. Discovery of class I histone deacetylase inhibitors based on romidpesin with promising selectivity for cancer cells. Future. Med. Chem., 12, 311-323, 2020. (*Equal contribution)
6. Yao, Yiwu, Chenzhong Liao, Zheng Li, Zhen Wang, Qiao Sun, Chunping Liu, Yang Yang, Zhengchao Tu, and Sheng Jiang. Design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of 1, 3-disubstituted-pyrazole derivatives as new class I and IIb histone deacetylase inhibitors. Eur. J. Med. Chem., 86, 639-652, 2014.

Interests