Eugene Yeo, PhD

Gene Yeo, PhD, MBA is the Sanford Stem Cell Institute Endowed Chair and Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of California San Diego, Director for UCSD’s Center for RNA Technologies and Therapeutics, Chief Scientist for Sanford Laboratories for Innovative Medicine and Director for the Sanford Stem Cell Institute’s Innovation Center. Dr. Yeo was trained as a computational biologist in machine learning/artificial intelligence during his PhD at MIT and then studied stem cell biology as a Crick-Jacobs fellow at the Salk Institute. His lab at UCSD has developed some of the most popular molecular and computational technologies to study how RNA processing is affected by RNA binding proteins in development and disease.  Gene has authored over 250 peer-reviewed publications (h-index of 100), is among the top 1% most highly cited scientists and received several prominent academic awards, including the Lee Kuan Yew Fellowship (2001), the Singapore National Research Foundation Visiting Investigatorship Award (2017), San Diego Xconomy Awardee for ‘Big Idea’ (2019), Paul Allen Distinguished Investigatorship (2020), the RNA Society’s Early Career Award (2017), the Elisa Izaurralde Award for Innovation in Research, Teaching and Service (2021) and the inaugural Academia Europaea Sydney Brenner Medal (2023). Gene has founded several biotech companies and serves as scientific advisor to Red Tree Ventures, Proteona (acquired by Singleron), Trotana, EclipseBio, Orbital Therapeutics, Insitro, Automera, AmberBio, Radar Therapeutics and Atomic.AI. Gene is among the top 50 life science academic entrepreneurs by BIOS’ Beaker List and received the inaugural Entrepreneurial Achievement Award from the Rady School of Management (2023).