The Seattle Chinese Biomedical Association (SCBA), in collaboration with Sino Biological, is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 SCBA-SinoBiological Young Investigator Awards.
The SCBA-SinoBiological Young Investigator Awards recognize outstanding early-career scientists in Washington State who have demonstrated exceptional promise and productivity in biomedical research. In addition to research excellence, this award honors individuals who actively contribute to the SCBA community through participation in seminars and annual meetings.
SCBA is a volunteer-run, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to fostering connections and knowledge exchange in the life sciences community across the Greater Seattle area. Since its founding in 1993, SCBA has served as a key platform for networking and collaboration among Chinese biomedical professionals.
Sino Biological is a global leader in biotechnology, providing high-quality reagents and services focused on recombinant protein production and antibody development. Their expansive portfolio supports scientists worldwide in advancing research and therapeutic development.
This year, we are proud to recognize four outstanding awardees whose scientific achievements and community involvement embody the spirit of this award. The recipients are listed below (in last name alphabetical order).
Shiyun Cao, PhD
HHMI Affiliate Postdoctoral Scholar, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle
Dr. Shiyun Cao earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Cell Science from the University of Florida. He is currently a Postdoctoral Scientist in Dr. Ning Zheng’s group at the University of Washington and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of targeted protein degradation, a key process in cellular regulation. Dr. Cao has made significant scientific contributions, with his work published in high-impact biomedical and life science journals, including Cell, Nature Communications, and The Plant Cell. Beyond his scientific work, he enjoys playing badminton and engaging in outdoor activities such as traveling and gardening.
Li Amily Guo, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor, Division of Hematology and Oncology, University of Washington, Seattle
Assistant Member, Bloodworks Northwest Research Institute
Dr. Li (Amily) Guo MD PhD is an Assistant Professor at Bloodworks Research Institute and the Division of Hematology and Oncology, University of Washington, Seattle. She is also an affiliated Assistant Professor at the Fred Hutch Cancer Institute and Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine, University of Washington.
She received her MD degree from Shandong University, China, where her studies focused on the pathogenesis of immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). After her MD training, Dr. Guo pursued a PhD in Medical Science at the University of Toronto, Canada, and discovered that allogeneic MHC class I on platelets induce CD8+ T cell suppression in ITP, which challenged the existing dogma. Her PhD work also uncovered the effectiveness of B cell depletion therapy in antibody negative ITP. Dr. Guo further studied the function of platelet MHC class I in shaping host CD8+ T cell responses during her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Utah.
Dr. Guo is an accomplished researcher with more than 30 peer-reviewed manuscripts published, including 3 first author publications in Blood. She is the recipient of many prestigious awards, such as the ASH-EHA Translational Research Training in Hematology (TRTH) Award, the American Heart Association Career Development Award, the Kenneth M. Brinkhous Early Career Investigator Prize Finalist, and the Midwest Platelet Conference Best Presentation Award.
In addition to her research, Dr. Guo serves as an Editor for the Thrombosis Journal and an Early Career Editorial member for the Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology Journal.
Guangrong Qin, PhD
Senior Research Scientist, Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), Seattle
Dr. Guangrong Qin is a computational biologist with expertise in bioinformatics, statistics, machine learning, and drug discovery. Dr. Qin’s research focused on developing computational tools, algorithms, platforms to facilitate precision medicine, and drug target discovery. Dr. Qin values the collaborations with biologists, clinical doctors to better address the biological and clinical questions, and has been working on various disease types including cancer and infectious diseases. Dr. Qin has led several projects to investigate the pan-cancer features based on multiomics data, and develop platforms to facilitate the investigation of cancer study. As an investigator on numerous US-federally funded studies, including NCI-funded Cancer Therapy Discovery and Development project and NCATS funded Biomedical Data Translator project, Dr. Qin has led and developed multiple computational tools such as Function Module States Framework, and worked on transforming biomedical data into big disease–gene–drug knowledge graph. She also co-authored a chapter titled “Multiple Omics Data Integration” for the book “Systems Medicine: Integrative, Qualitative and Computational Approaches”. Dr. Qin has been invited as a reviewer for different journals, including Nature Biotechnology, Cell Reports, BMC Genomics, Frontiers in Oncology etc. With a long-term goal of pursuing precision medicine with the understanding of disease pathology, pharmacology, Dr. Qin believes the collaboration among clinical doctors, biologist, computational biologists, and the collaboration between academia and industry are the key to promote this translational medicine field. For collaboration opportunities, welcome to contact Dr. Qin.
Yanfang Su, ScD
Assistant Professor, Global Health
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Evans School
University of Washington, Seattle
Dr. Yanfang Su is a health economist with more than ten years of work experience in health systems and policy. Dr. Su holds an ScD in Global Health and Population within Health Systems track from Harvard University. During her postdoctoral training at the University of Washington, Dr. Su applied econometric methods to health financing and published papers in The Lancet as co-first author and The Lancet Infectious Diseases as first author. Her publications focus on three areas: 1) economic evaluation of healthcare systems, including analysis of equity, supply, demand, costs, and quality; 2) public policy evaluation; and 3) global health and population measures. Dr. Su has been designing a new course on Comparative Health Systems and mentoring 20 trainees, including 18 from underrepresented groups. Dr. Su is the founder and Board Chair of a non-profit organization, the East West Alliance for Education and Health, which delivered equitable community services and conducted digital health randomized controlled trials in low-resource settings. Dr. Su worked at Tsinghua University and the Hong Kong Policy and Research Institute in China. Dr. Su has consulted for the World Bank, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Results for Development on primary health care systems strengthening. Dr. Su is a guest editor for a special issue on policy implementation science in Frontiers in Health Services. Dr. Su is an IS-2 scholar and her career goal is to become a leading scientist in policy implementation, with a focus on cardiovascular disease prevention.
Please join us in congratulating the 2024 awardees for their remarkable contributions to biomedical science and to the SCBA community!
