Dr. Yien earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the National University of Singapore, where she studied mitochondrial apoptosis during her undergrad research. She earned her PhD from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City with Dr. James Bieker. Her PhD work focused on regulation of transcription during erythroid development. Subsequently, she moved to the Brigham and Women’s Hospital for a postdoctoral fellowship where her interests converged on studying mitochondrial iron metabolism during erythropoiesis with Dr. Barry Paw. Her work on regulation of heme synthesis by transport mechanisms was recognized by NIDDK F32 and K01 fellowships. Shortly after, she was promoted to Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. In 2017, she started her lab at the University of Delaware as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences. There, she started the first zebrafish research facility in the state and began to unravel several other novel mechanisms of heme regulation, such as protein complex formation within mitochondria and regulation of PPOX and FECH by the housekeeping mitochondrial unfoldase, CLPX. In 2021, she was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh at the rank of Associate Professor. Her work is currently funded by an NIGMS R35. Her independent work has previously been funded by other grants from the NIDDK (K01 and R03, and 2 pilot grants), NHLBI (P01 subproject), NIGMS (P20 subproject), as well as a Cooley’s Anemia Foundation award.

1. To understand how mitochondrial homeostasis functionally and structurally interacts with iron metabolism to couple iron utilization with the needs of individual cells.

2. Understand how iron functions as an effector of cellular development, particularly in tissues that rely heavily on iron/heme such as hepatic and erythroid cells.

3. Unravel how pregnant mammals adapt erythroid development and iron metabolism for the needs of a pregnancy.

PhD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY

BS, National University of Singapore