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Geneticist follows medical dream to Harvard
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Yanli Fan, 604-291-5879, yfan@sfu.ca
Yanli Fan, 604-291-5879, yfan@sfu.ca
October 4, 2004
Yanli Fan is soft-spoken and a little shy. You wouldn't think she's a challenge seeker, but what she's achieved in her short life reveals a different story.
The Beijing-born SFU student will receive her doctorate in molecular biology and biochemistry this October. The 32-year-old Coquitlam resident will then travel with her husband to Boston, Massachusetts, where she will take up a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University's school of medicine. There, Fan will delve further into human genetics.
Originally trained as a medical doctor, Fan came to Vancouver with her husband four years ago, after she had finished her residency at Beijing's Capital University of Medical Sciences. “I wanted to know more about what made people sick rather than just treat them,” she says. Fan not only had to learn a new culture but also to master English in order to communicate with colleagues about human genetics and bioinformatics.
Fan, who recently became a Canadian citizen, used her medical knowledge and training in bioinformatics at SFU to genetically characterize 26 families with Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS) in Newfoundland. Her comparison of genetic mutations in their DNA with a computerized database of normal genes led her and other scientists to identify BBS3 -- an eighth gene now known to cause BBS.
The multisystemic hereditary disorder afflicts one in 160,000 people worldwide. Its traits are linked to more common diseases, such as obesity, kidney disease and blindness.
-30-
electronic photo availble
The Beijing-born SFU student will receive her doctorate in molecular biology and biochemistry this October. The 32-year-old Coquitlam resident will then travel with her husband to Boston, Massachusetts, where she will take up a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University's school of medicine. There, Fan will delve further into human genetics.
Originally trained as a medical doctor, Fan came to Vancouver with her husband four years ago, after she had finished her residency at Beijing's Capital University of Medical Sciences. “I wanted to know more about what made people sick rather than just treat them,” she says. Fan not only had to learn a new culture but also to master English in order to communicate with colleagues about human genetics and bioinformatics.
Fan, who recently became a Canadian citizen, used her medical knowledge and training in bioinformatics at SFU to genetically characterize 26 families with Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS) in Newfoundland. Her comparison of genetic mutations in their DNA with a computerized database of normal genes led her and other scientists to identify BBS3 -- an eighth gene now known to cause BBS.
The multisystemic hereditary disorder afflicts one in 160,000 people worldwide. Its traits are linked to more common diseases, such as obesity, kidney disease and blindness.
-30-
electronic photo availble