Yuan Ma joined the Chemistry faculty at Rice in 2024 as Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Junior Faculty Chair and Norman Hackerman-Welch Young Investigator. Before this appointment, Yuan’s postdoctoral research was conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Chemistry, under the guidance of Professor Yi Lu. Her postdoctoral research focused on developing bioimaging techniques to study glycoRNAs and metabolites, screening novel nucleic acid aptamers, and designing biosensors for on-site detection. Yuan completed her Ph.D. at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, co-advised by Professors Deyue Yan, Xinyuan Zhu, and Chuan Zhang. Her doctoral research was centered on developing innovative nanomedicine technologies for biomedical applications, and DNA nanotechnology. Yuan received her B.A. in Materials Physics from Nanjing University in 2012. She has been selected as Provost Early Career Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin and the Leading Edge Fellow.

Research Summary: The Ma lab is dedicated to developing chemical biology tools for interdisciplinary research in chemistry, biology, and biomedical applications. We are interested in these research directions: 1) Develop chemical biology tools for in situ studies of RNA/protein; 2) Investigate the nature of RNA modification, such as glycoRNAs, and epigenetic RNAs; 3) Explore the biological mechanisms of RNA/protein and their relationships with diseases; 4) Utilize RNA/protein as biomarkers to develop early detection methods for diseases. Our goals are to advance the fundamental knowledge of chemical biology, and contribute to translational science in disease early detection.