Yan Xiyun

Yan Xiyun is a nanobiologist, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a researcher and doctoral supervisor of the Institute of Biophysics of CAS, director of the Key Laboratory of the Institute of Protein and Peptide Medicine, and a professor at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Yan graduated from Henan Medical University in 1982. In 1983, she joined the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where she served as an intern researcher and assistant researcher. In 1989, she went to the School of Theoretical Medicine of Heidelberg University in Germany to study for a doctoral degree, and in 1994 she went to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Research Center in the United States to engage in post-doctoral research. In 1997, she was selected into the Hundred Talents Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and served as a researcher and doctoral supervisor of CAS's Institute of Biophysics. In 2007, her discovery of nano enzymes was included in the annual top 10 scientific progressive outcomes in China. In 2012, her application research on nano enzymes was selected into the top 10 scientific progressive outcomes of the year in China. In 2015, she was elected an academician of CAS, and in the same year, she was elected as the chairwoman of the Asian Biophysical Union. She won the first National Innovation Prize in 2017, and the Tan Jiazhen Life Science Achievement Award in 2018. In 2019, she was named a National March 8th Red Flag Pacesetter.

Yan discovered CD146, a new target of tumor blood vesselsand revealed its mechanism of action. She also designed a corresponding therapeutic antibody, which can inhibit growth of tumors, and identified nano enzymes and invented a new technology for tumor diagnosis.