Biography

2014–present	Senior Scientist, WM Keck Center for Transgene Research, University of Notre Dame
2008–2014	Senior Research Biologist, Department of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University
2003–2008	Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Chemistry, Simon Fraser University, Canada
1999–2003	Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University
1995–1997	Postdoctoral Fellow, Peking University, China
1995	Ph.D., Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, China
1986	B.S., Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Beijing

Research Interests

My current interests are applications of NMR spectroscopy techniques to study the structure and dynamics of proteins that participate in blood coagulation and blood clot dissolution.

Recent Papers

Yuan Y, Zajicek J, Qiu C, Chandrahas V, Lee SW, Ploplis VA, Castellino FJ. Conformationally organized lysine isosteres in Streptococcus pyogenes M protein mediate direct high-affinity binding to human plasminogen. J Biol Chem. 2017 Sep 8;292(36):15016-15027. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M117.794198. Epub 2017 Jul 19. PMID: 28724633

Yuan Y, Balsara RD, Zajicek J, Kunda S, Castellino FJ. Discerning the Role of the Hydroxyproline Residue in the Structure of Conantokin Rl-B and Its Role in GluN2B Subunit-Selective Antagonistic Activity toward N-Methyl-d-Aspartate Receptors. Biochemistry. 2016 Dec 27;55(51):7112-7122. doi: 10.1021/acs.biochem.6b00962. Epub 2016 Dec 16. PMID: 27981829

Kunda S, Yuan Y, Balsara RD, Zajicek J, Castellino FJ. Hydroxyproline-induced Helical Disruption in Conantokin Rl-B Affects Subunit-selective Antagonistic Activities toward Ion Channels of N-Methyl-d-aspartate Receptors. J Biol Chem. 2015 Jul 17;290(29):18156-72. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M115.650341. Epub 2015 Jun 5. PMID: 26048991

Yuan Y, Byrd C, Shen TJ, Simplaceanu V, Tam TC, Ho C. Role of β/δ101Gln in regulating the effect of temperature and allosteric effectors on oxygen affinity in woolly mammoth hemoglobin. Biochemistry 2013 Dec 10 52(49):8888-8897. doi: 10.1021/bi401087d. Epub 2013 Nov 21. PMID:24228693

Yuan Y, Shen TJ, Gupta P, Ho NT, Simplaceanu V, Tam TCS, Hofreiter M, Cooper A, Campbell KL, Ho C. A biochemical-biophysical study of hemoglobins from Woolly Mammoth, Asian Elephant, and Humans. Biochemistry. 2011 Aug 30;50(34):7350-7360. doi: 10.1021/bi200777 Epub 2011 Aug 2. PMID:21806075

Yuan Y, Simplaceanu V, Ho NT, Ho C. An investigation of the distal histidyl hydrogen bonds in oxyhemoglobin: effects of temperature, pH, and inositol hexaphosphate. Biochemistry 2010 Dec 21;49(50):10606-10615. doi: 10.1021/bi100927p. Epub2010 Nov 29. PMID:21077639

Yuan Y, Bleile DW, Wen X, Sanders DA, Itoh K, Liu HW, Pinto BM. Investigation of binding of UDP-Galf and UDP-[3-F]Galf to UDP-galactopyranose mutase by STD-NMR spectroscopy, molecular dynamics, and CORCEMA-ST calculations. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008 Mar 12;130(10):3157-3168. doi: 10.1021/ja7104152 Epub 2008 Feb 16. PMID:18278916

Song XJ, Yuan Y, Simplaceanu V, Sahu SC, Ho NT, Ho C. A comparative NMR study of the polypeptide backbone dynamics of hemoglobin in the deoxy and carbonmonoxy forms. Biochemistry. 2007 Jun 12;46(23):6795-6803. Epub 2007 May12. PMID:17497935

Yuan Y, Wen X, Sanders DA, Pinto BM. Exploring the mechanism of binding of UDP-galactopyranose to UDP-galactopyranose mutase by STD-NMR spectroscopy and molecular modeling. Biochemistry. 2005 Nov 1;44(43):14080-14089. PMID:16245924

Wen X, Yuan Y, Kuntz DA, Rose DR, Pinto BM. A combined STD-NMR/molecular modeling protocol for predicting the binding modes of the glycosidase inhibitors kifunensine and salacinol to Golgi alpha-mannosidase II. Biochemistry. 2005 May 10;44(18):6729-6737. PMID:15865418

Yuan Y, Simplaceanu V, Lukin JA, Ho C. NMR investigation of the dynamics of tryptophan side-chains in hemoglobins. J. Mol. Bio. 2002 Aug 30;321(5):863-878. PMID:12206767