Wan Seok Yang

Wan Seok Yang, Ph.D. Yang comes to St. John’s University as an assistant professor of biology. He has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology; an M.A. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology; and a B.A. in Biological Sciences from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Yang has been using chemical genetics approaches to study cell death pathways. While working at Columbia University as an associate research scientist, he identified small molecules that induce a distinctive form of cell death, named ferroptosis, and discovered GPX4 as a central regulator of ferroptosis. He is interested in applying this knowledge on cell death to selectively eliminate cancer cells or protect neurons from degeneration.