Hsin-Chih Yeh
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Biomedical Engineering
Many of the most useful measurements in biology and medicine rely on molecules that recognize one target and report that it is there. These projects build such tools from short strands of DNA and RNA and pair them with sensitive light-based imaging.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Chemistry
Biophysics
- Topics
glycoRNA
glycosylated RNA
small non-coding RNA
- Grants
- 4 known grants, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Develop live-cell imaging methods that show glycoRNAs, small RNAs carrying sugar chains on the cell surface, alongside their sugar-free RNA counterparts, to compare their abundance, location, membrane movement and trafficking.
- Use single-molecule tracking and super-resolution microscopy to test how glycoRNAs bind RNA-binding proteins and gather into nanoscale membrane clusters, and use genetic perturbations to test their role in cell-surface signaling.
- Build a single-cell glycoRNA-mRNA co-sequencing platform that tags glycoRNAs with sequencing adapters by proximity labeling, so standard 3′ single-cell RNA sequencing reveals which cell types carry which glycoRNAs.
- Select DNA or RNA aptamers that bind the antipsychotic clozapine tightly but ignore similar compounds, using the SELEX-NGS selection platform, as the basis for reliable blood-level tests.
- Turn clozapine aptamers into a repurposed personal glucose meter readout, a sensor array that tells clozapine from look-alike drugs, and a nanopipette device that counts single clozapine molecules carried on DNA.
- Discover and improve catalytic functional nucleic acids, such as aptazymes and DNA-peptide chimeras, using selection, synthesis and signal-conversion methods, aiming for sensors that match or beat protein enzymes in complex samples.
- 3D bioprint human induced pluripotent stem cells into a self-healing scaffold and link modules modeling the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens into a transparent reward-circuit model for opioid research.
- Develop TIRF (total internal reflection fluorescence) microscopy to test whether opioid drugs make single human µ-opioid receptors pair up, plus hyperspectral lifetime imaging that tracks dopamine, GABA, glutamate and calcium at once.
More about the research
The goal is to detect drugs, chemicals and biomolecules, and to watch them act in living cells and engineered tissue. Four projects share this toolkit. One maps a newly discovered class of sugar-coated RNAs on the cell surface. One builds blood tests for an antipsychotic drug. One designs DNA-based molecules that work like enzymes. One builds a human brain-circuit model for studying opioids.
Why it matters
Patients taking clozapine for schizophrenia could gain cheaper, more reliable blood monitoring, even with a repurposed glucose meter, to keep doses effective but below levels that cause seizures or neutropenia. Human stem-cell brain-circuit models and multi-signal imaging could help drug developers screen treatments for opioid use disorder and non-addictive pain medicines. DNA-based sensors and glycoRNA tools may yield new diagnostic and therapeutic targets and ways to track chemicals inside living cells.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Collaborative Research: Decoding GlycoRNAs on Cell Surfaces using Single-molecule and Single-cell Approaches
NSF · Aug 2026 – Jul 2029
Novel tools for point-of-care therapeutic drug monitoring
NSF · Jan 2025 – Dec 2027
Chemical Measurements and Imaging Using Novel Functional Nucleic Acids
NSF · Sep 2024 – Aug 2027
Closest labs
Yi Xiao
North Carolina State University, NC·Chemistry
Develop NA-SELEX, an aptamer selection method that uses DNA-cutting nucleases so neither target nor library sits on a solid support, to find aptamers that bind tightly and stay bound under body-like conditions.
Comert Kural
Ohio State University, OH·Biophysics
Build and iteratively optimize a 3D TIRF-SIM microscope, combining surface-limited illumination, patterned-light super-resolution and evanescent field nanometry, for the best spatial and temporal resolution.
Byron Purse
San Diego State University, CA·Chemistry
Create ASO and siRNA stand-ins carrying a pair of fluorescent ribonucleosides, one a steady reference and one pH-sensitive, to image cell uptake and measure escape from acidic endosomes in live cells.
The school
University of Texas at Austin: 49 labs on PI Pages, $1.1B a year on research, 871 research doctorates a year.
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