Jiayang Chen

Jiayang earned a BS degree in Biological Science from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. She is from the He Lab in the Biological Sciences department where she studies tissue morphogenesis in early Drosophila embryos. Jiayang is particularly interested in understanding the regulation of non-muscle myosin II during Drosophila cleavage, which is achieved through a special cytokinesis called cellularization. Jiayang seeks to understand how a novel gene dunk regulates myosin molecularly during early cellularization. She identified anillin as the primary binding partner of Dunk that functions to regulate early myosin recruitment. Her work identified the important function of anillin in regulating the basal myosin network and revealed how fly embryos make use of the cytokinesis machinery to achieve a special form of cleavage. Her hobbies include reading books, travel, cooking, and watching anime.