Yeo Lab

Degrees

Ph.D. in Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 2017 BSc in Systems Biology, University of Science and Technology of China, 2012

Summary

Tao received his BS in Systems Biology from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He completed his undergraduate thesis with Dr. Jingdong Han in MPG-CAS-PICB in Shanghai, working on high throughput RNAi screen of age-related genes (knockdown of which was previously shown to either extend or shorten lifespan) on age-related pathways (using transgenic worms carrying reporters of known age-related pathways). Tao then completed his Ph.D. in National University of Singapore (NUS), where he worked with Dr. Jonathan Loh to study the maintenance of pluripotency and regulation of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) in embryonic stem cells. His Ph.D. thesis illustrates how a post-translational modification, sumoylation, could control the stability of Trim28 and in turn regulates the repressive epigentic marks on ERVs. He also proposed a novel model that poly-sumoylation could potentially perform as a scaffold to initiate Trim28’s interaction with transcription factors that have multiple SUMO binding motifs.

After his Ph.D., Tao first joined the Yeo Lab at NUS in 2018 and later moved to the Yeo Lab at UCSD in 2021. He is currently interested in identifying novel regulators of circular RNAs and explore the scaffold-like properties of RNA and RNA binding proteins.

Publications

Yu T, Scolnick JA. Complex biological questions being addressed using single cell sequencing technologies. SLAS Technology (Review, Accepted)

Pradeep G, Yu T, Loh YH. Regulation of ERVs in pluripotent stem cells and reprogramming. Current Opinion in Genetics & Development 2017

Yang BX, El Farran CA, Guo HC, Yu T, Fang HT, Wang HF, Schlesinger S, Seah YF, Goh GY, Neo SP, Li Y, Lorincz MC, Tergaonkar V, Lim TM, Chen L, Gunaratne J, Collins JJ, Goff SP, Daley GQ, Li H, Bard FA, Loh YH. Systematic identification of factors for provirus silencing in embryonic stem cells. Cell. 2015 *As co-first author

Xian B, Shen J, Chen WY, Sun N, Qian N, Jiang D, Yu T, Men Y, Han Z, Pang Y, Kaeberlein M, Huang Y, Han JD. WormFarm: a quantitative control and measurement device toward automated Caenorhabditis elegans aging analysis. Ageing Cell. 2013

Schleit J, Johnson SC, Bennett CF, Simko M, Trongtham N, Castanza A, Hsieh EJ, Moller RM, Wasko BM, Delaney JR, Sutphin GL, Carr D, Murakami CJ, Tocchi A, Xian B, Chen W, Yu T, Goswami S, Higgins S, Holmberg M, Jeong KS, Kim JR, Klum S, Liao E, Lin MS, Lo W, Miller H, Olsen B, Peng ZJ, Pollard T, Pradeep P, Pruett D, Rai D, Ros V, Singh M, Spector BL, Vander Wende H, An EH, Fletcher M, Jelic M, Rabinovitch PS, MacCoss MJ, Han JD, Kennedy BK, Kaeberlein M. Molecular mechanisms underlying genotype-dependent responses to dietary restriction. Aging Cell. 2013