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Zizhen Yao

Zizhen Yao, Ph.D.

Assistant Investigator

Bio:

Zizhen Yao joined the Allen Institute for Brain Science in 2014 as part of a large interdisciplinary effort to categorize the diversity of neural cell types and the molecular mechanisms leading to cell type specificity. Prior to joining the Allen Institute for Brain Science, she worked at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center developing computational techniques for analyzing high throughput epigenetic and transcriptomic data to study myogenesis and neurogenesis during normal development and in disease.

Zizhen Yao received a Ph.D. in computer science from University of Washington in Seattle, where she studied in silico genome screening of functional noncoding RNAs.

Research Focus:

I am interested in genetic and epigenetic regulation of transcription factors for cell fate determination during brain development in comparison to development in other systems to understand general principles of cell differentiation.