Cheng-Yao Chen, Ph.D.

Dr. Chen is an expert in emerging, molecular technology development, and has more than 15-years of protein biochemistry and engineering experience. Prior to joining CYMD, Dr. Chen was a staff scientist at Illumina responsible for leading internal R&D projects in advanced DNA sequencing and gene synthesis technologies. He was the recipient of 2013 annual Illumina Innovation Award, for his achievement in robust sequencing-chemistry improvement on MiSeq, NextSeq, HiSeq2500, and HiSeq X-Ten platforms. He is also an inventor in a new gene synthesis method for creating artificial DNAs. Before working at Illumina, Dr. Chen was a key research scientist at Life Technologies in creating a FRET-based, real-time, single-molecule sequencing platform. Previous to his industrial work, Dr. Chen was a postdoctoral research fellow with Dr. Lawrence A. Loeb in the Department of Biochemistry & Pathology at University of Washington in Seattle, U.S.A. His postdoctoral research focused on the mechanism and function of DNA replication & repair enzymes. Dr. Chen earned his Ph.D. in Molecular & Cellular Biology from Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon; M.S. in Clinical Laboratory Sciences from S.U.N.Y. at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York; B.S. in Medical Technologies from Taipei Medical University in Taipei, Taiwan. He has 10 publications and 12 pending/granted patents in new qPCR methods, DNA sequencing technologies, and various enzyme development.