Xufen Yu

Professor

Fudan University，School of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Short Biography

Xufen Yu, Ph.D., is a Principal Investigator and doctoral supervisor at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Fudan University. Dr. Yu’s research focuses on the development of innovative therapeutics based on PROTAC (Proteolysis Targeting Chimera) technology. By integrating multidisciplinary approaches—including organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, proteomics, structural biology, and genomics—her work targets drug-resistant protein kinases and epigenetic regulators that are difficult to inhibit with traditional small molecules. Her team develops highly selective and potent PROTAC degraders and employs them as chemical tools to elucidate novel mechanisms of target proteins in cellular signaling and their unconventional oncogenic roles in tumor progression.

Presentation Topic: Harnessing Novel E3 Ligases for Selective Target Protein Degradation

• Tumor-selective expression enables target protein degradation of oncoproteins specifically within the tumor microenvironment

• Recruitment of a novel endogenous E3 ligase drives potent and selective degradation of BRD4 and AKT1

• Novel E3 ligase-based degraders overcome resistance associated with classical E3 ligases CRBN and VHL