Pei-Ling Yu
Dr. Yu is a motivated innovator with hands-on experience developing, executing, analyzing, and summarizing NGS data for the studies of pine breeding and fungal pathogenesis. She is a knowledgeable professional with proficiency in molecular biology and genetics as evidenced by coordinating 2 training workshops, and 14 peer-reviewed publications. Her strong interpersonal and organizational communication skills are proven by managing multidisciplinary research projects resulting in the development of 2 national/international collaborative research programs.
Research Interests
- Molecular diagnostics of plant pathogens
- Fungal biology
- Host-parasite interaction
- Forest genomics
- Bioinformatics
Experience
Department of Plant Pathology, University of Florida, FL
Postdoctoral Associate • May, 2021 — Present
- Developed wet-lab protocols and bioinformatic pipelines of sequence-based pathogen identification.
- Elucidated etiology of pitch canker on slash pine and evaluated pitch canker tolerant pine clones.
- Developed research plans and a successful grant proposal.
- Mentored graduate students in whole genome sequencing, assembly, annotation and general NGS data analysis.
Department of Plant Pathology, University of Florida, FL
Graduate Research Assistant • August, 2016 — May 2021
- Designed and executed experiments to study the host-fungal pathogen interactions in Arabidopsis thaliana–Sclerotinia sclerotiorum pathosystem.
- Conducted CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to study the regulation of the cAMP/PKA signaling pathway in S. sclerotiorum.
- Supervised the laboratory technician to perform molecular mutation screening.
Department of Plant Pathology, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan
Project Research Assistant • September, 2012 — July 2016
- Investigated signaling pathways regarding osmotic and oxidative stress, fungicide sensitivity, and pathogenesis in Alternaria alternata causing Alternaria brown spot of citrus and peach brown rot pathogen Monilinia fructicola
- Maintained laboratory equipment performance and laboratory inventory.
- Monitored undergraduate and graduate students.
Education
University of Florida, FL
Ph.D., Plant Pathology • 2016 — 2021
National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan
M.S., Plant Pathology • 2010 — 2012
National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan
B.S., Plant Pathology • 2006 — 2010
Projects
A Universal Pathogen Identification Tool (UPIT) for CETCIL partners
United States Agency for International Development. $105,000
Co-PI • 2023 — 2024
Development of a universal diagnostic tool for needle diseases of southern pines using Nanopore multi-gene target-capture sequencing
Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research. $ 30,012.22 (matching funder-UF)
Co-PI • 2023 — 2024
Investigating the impacts of low-dose chronic simulated cosmic radiation on plant-microbial interactions
NASA
Co-PI •
Invited to submit a step-2 proposal.
Skills
Research skills
Nucleic acids and protein extraction, NGS library prepatation, whole genome/targeted sequencing, transcriptomic profiling, NGS data analysis, molecular diagnosis.
Associations
American Association for the Advancement of Science
• 2021 — present
American Phytopathology Society
• 2018 — present
Additional Links
Social Links
- Github: https://github.com/ply2022
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pei-ling-yu-384299117/
- Website: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hxkX-WgAAAAJ&hl=en