Team

Dr. Ryan K.C. Yuen – Principal Investigator

• Senior Scientist, Genetics & Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids)
• Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto

Ryan received his PhD with Dr. Wendy Robinson at the University of British Columbia in 2011, investigating the epigenetics of human fetal and placental development. His postdoctoral research with Dr. Stephen Scherer (at SickKids Research Institute) primarily focused on exploiting whole genome-scanning methodologies to dissect the underlying genetic architecture in autism spectrum disorder and related neurodevelopmental conditions. His current major research focus is to develop novel disease gene discovery strategies, effective diagnostic approaches and better treatments for brain related disorders.

• See Dr. Yuen’s SickKids profile
• See Dr. Yuen’s U of T profile

Dr. Sasha Mitina – Research Fellow

Sasha obtained her Master’s degree from the Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics at the Lomonosov Moscow State University and her PhD from the Center for Life Sciences at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow. In her thesis work under supervision of Prof. Philipp Khaitovich, she investigated the role of breast milk lipid composition in postnatal brain development as well as molecular changes underlying the evolution of the human brain. Sasha joined the Yuen Lab in September 2021 as a Research Fellow to study the role of tandem repeat expansions in human neurological disorders.

sasha.mitina@sickkids.ca

Dr. Amira Moustafa – Research Fellow

Dr. Amira Moustafa obtained her undergraduate degree from Mansoura University (Egypt) in Pharmaceutical Sciences and M.Sc. in Biochemical/Biomaterials from Western University (Canada). She finished PhD in Biology at York University under the supervision of Prof. McDermott where she investigated the role of MEF2 transcription factor networks is cardiac muscle.

amira.moustafa@sickkids.ca

Yue (Anita) Yin – Data Analyst

Anita completed her B.Sc. in Cell & Molecular Biology specialist program and Applied Statistics minor program from University of Toronto (Scarborough) in 2016. During her B.Sc., Anita completed her first co-op work-term in a research team focusing on reproductive health and developmental diseases at BGI-Shenzhen in China. Then she finished the second work-term in the Heon Lab at SickKids, studying inherited eye disorders. In 2017, Anita received her M.Sc. in Biostatistics from University of Toronto. During her M.Sc., Anita worked on a practicum project, co-supervised by Dr. Sondheimer and Dr. Strug, where she modeled nuclear DNA and the mtDNA misalignment effect on Type 2 Diabetes. Anita joined Yuen Lab in the summer of 2017 as a Data Analyst. She mainly focuses on statistical analyses of NGS sequencing data and data management for the lab. In her spare time, Anita enjoys exploring different brunch places and watching movies.

anita.yin@sickkids.ca

Induja Chandrakumar – Senior Bioinformatician

Induja completed her joint B.CS. in Computer Science and Biology at the University of Waterloo. After graduating, she worked as a computational biologist at the microbiology startup BugSeq. There, she developed tools for bioterrorism detection in partnership with the CDC and created pioneering predictors of antimicrobial resistance from clinical metagenomic samples. She has published methods in metagenomics and the tracking of hospital acquired infections, then deployed them in hospitals across the US and Canada. She is currently working on methods to detect somatic repeat expansions in cancer cells.

induja.chandrakumar@sickkids.ca

Hoi Lam (Phoenix) Doong – Research Technologist I

Phoenix completed her B.Sc. in Biological Sciences at the University of Hong Kong and has been a genetic assistant in Hong Kong for 2 years. Apart from providing genetic counselling to rare disease patients, she also helped in a parental mosaicism project and the Hong Kong Genome Project. She hopes to continue helping genetic disease patients with variant analyses and short tandem repeats studies. She has volunteered in Yuen Lab in summer 2023 before she officially joins the team. In her spare time, she likes going on road trips and photography.

hoilam.doong@sickkids.ca

Mahreen Khan – PhD Candidate

Mahreen completed her B.Sc. in the Human Biology Genetics program at the University of Toronto, and is currently pursuing her PhD in the Department of Molecular Genetics at UofT under the supervision of Dr. Ryan Yuen and Dr. Christopher Pearson. She is interested in identifying genetic modifiers of tandem repeat expansions through next-generation and long-read sequencing in addition to in vitro experiments. In her free time, Mahreen enjoys binging Netflix shows, trying new amateur home-cook recipes, and showing off pictures of her dogs.

mahreen.khan@sickkids.ca

Muyang (Farren) Cheng – PhD Candidate

Muyang completed his B.Sc. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and is currently in pursuing his PhD in the Department of Molecular Genetics. He is currently working on identifying the genetic modifiers of the 22q11.2 deletion and 7q11.23 duplication syndrome that lead to schizophrenia among other diverse disease phenotypes. Muyang enjoys solving jigsaw puzzles during his free time, particularly those of natural scenery.

farren.cheng@sickkids.ca

Yankai (Kevin) Wu – M.Sc. Candidate

kevin.wu@sickkids.ca

Jimmy Nguyen – M.Sc. Candidate

Celine Salhab – M.Sc. Candidate

Serena He – Undergraduate Student

Serena is currently in her third year at the University of Toronto, majoring in Mathematics and Computer Science. She joined the Yuen Lab to learn about the applications of mathematics, bioinformatics, and computational methods in genetic research, and specifically how to use and develop them to find genetic causes for chronic diseases and disorders. In her free time Serena likes to snowboard, travel, and play soccer.

Joseph Yu – Volunteer

Joseph is currently a second-year bioinformatics and computer science student at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Prior to volunteering the Yuen Lab, he was research student in Alex N. Nguyen Ba’s lab at UTM, where he studied yeast orthologs of human DNA-repair genes. He is excited about research occurring at the intersection of machine learning and molecular genetics and is excited to learn about modern tools in genetic analysis. When he has free time, he engages himself in philosophy and creative writing.

Nour Hassan – Undergraduate Student

Nour is in her third year doing a Bioinformatics and Computational Biology specialist and a Molecular Genetics and Microbiology major at the University of Toronto. She’s interested in the application of genetic concepts in medicine and hopes to learn a lot at the Yuen lab. In her free time, she enjoys reading, crocheting, and watching TV.

Iris Wang – Undergraduate Student

Ziyu is a third-year student at the University of Toronto, specializing in Molecular Genetics and minoring in Statistics. At the Yuen Lab, she is learning to perform computational analyses on large genome sequence datasets to understand the implications of tandem repeat expansions in rare human diseases. Besides genetics, Ziyu is interested in cinema studies, boxing and visiting parks.

Nancy Chen – Volunteer

Nancy is a second-year student pursuing a Neuroscience specialist, Genetics major, and Statistics minor at the University of Toronto. She is excited to learn how genetic variations can reveal insights into disease etiology and how studying them could inform diagnostic and therapeutic developments. Outside the lab, she relishes writing short stories, singing, and weightlifting.

Jasmine Li – Volunteer

Jasmine is currently a Master’s student in the Medical Genomics Program at the University of Toronto. She is interested in using sequencing techniques and computational analyses to discover genetic variations in diseases. She believes that the application of sequencing techniques and computational tools can reveal the story behind the genome. In her free time, Jasmine enjoys collecting Jellycat, hiking, and watching movies.

Monica R. Chacón Grijalva – Volunteer