JIYUAN YANG portrait
  • Research Professor, Molecular Pharmaceutics
801-581-6835

Education

  • B.S., Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  • M.S., Polymer Materials, Dalian Institute of Technology, China
  • Ph.D., Biomedical Polymer Science, Peking University, China
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Liquid Crystal Elastomers (Artificial Muscle), Institute Curie, Paris, France

Research Interests

Having been working on biomaterials and drug delivery nearly 30 years, I have expertise in the design, synthesis and characterization of polymers and bioconjugates. From injectable biodegradable vaccine-delivery microspheres to new constructs of antibody-drug conjugates, I have accumulated a broad background with specific expertise in the synthesis and evaluation of various nanomedicines, in particular N-(2- hydroxypropyl)methacrylamide (HPMA)-based bioconjugates. For example, a patented technology relevant to more effective 2nd generation HPMA-based polymer-drug conjugates have been developed in our laboratory. This new synthetic strategy endorses inert HPMA polymer with biodegradability, which permits to prepare high molecular weight HPMA-drug conjugates with simple linear architecture while maintaining good biocompatibility. Various preclinical studies demonstrate distinct advantages over current clinical chemotherapeutic agents on tumor inhibition, indicating great potential to enhance cancer therapy.

I also work on new combination treatment strategies. In addition, our recent work on new construct of antibody-drug conjugates has won ‘2017 Best Research Paper in European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences’, in which I served as corresponding author. This design integrates the high specificity of antibody-drug conjugates with advantages of macromolecular therapeutics