Yuan Cheng has over 20 years’ drug discovery experience with a successful track record of advancing challenging drug targets from concept to hit to clinical candidate.  She is skilled in hybrid modality drug discovery, peptide research, antibody conjugation technology, medicinal chemistry research and siRNA therapeutic discovery and has experience across therapeutic areas covering neuroscience, oncology, virology and metabolic diseases.  Prior to joining Amgen, she was a Research Fellow in medicinal chemistry at Merck (Rahway). 

Featured Publications

Lu, S.; Chen, M.; Atangan, L.; Killion, E.; Komorowski, R.; Cheng, Y.; Falsey, J.; Hale, C.; Stanislaus, S.; Hager, T.; Thomas, V.; Harrold, J. M.; Loyd, D. J.; Veniant, M. M., GIPR Antagonistic Antibodies Conjugated to GLP-1 Peptide Are Bispecific Molecules That Decrease Weight in Obese Mice and Monkeys.  Cell Reports Medicine, 2021, 2(5), 100263. 
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666379121000793

Killion, E.; Sivits, G.; Falsey, J.; Hager, T.; Wu, B.; Atangan, L.; Li, H.; Cheng, Y.; Véniant, M. M.; Lloyd, D. J., Chronic glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor (GIPR) agonism desensitizes adipocyte GIPR activity mimicking functional GIPR antagonism  Nature Comm., 2020, 11(1), 4981.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18751-8

Murray, J. K.; Wu, B.; Tegley, C. M.; Nixey, T. E.; Falsey, J. R.; Herberich, B.; Yin, L.; Sham, K.; Long, J.; Aral, J.; Cheng, Y.; Netirojjanakul, C.; Doherty, L.; Glaus, C.; Ikotun, T.; Li, H.; Tran, L.; Soto, M.; Salimi-Moosavi, H.; Ligutti, J.; Amagasu, S.; Andrews, K. L.; Be, X.; Lin, M. J.; Foti, R. S.; Ilch, C. P.; Youngblood, B.; Kornecook, T. J.; Karow, M.; Walker, K. W.; Moyer, B. D.; Biswas, K.; Miranda, L. P. Engineering NaV1.7 inhibitory JzTx-​V peptides with a potency and basicity profile suitable for antibody conjugation to enhance pharmacokinetics ACS Chem. Biol., 2019, 14(4), 806-818.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acschembio.9b00183

Low, J.; Bartberger, M.; Chen, K.; Cheng, Y.; Fielden, M. R.; Gore, V.; Hickman, D.; Liu, Q.; Sickmier, E. A.; Vargas, H. M.; Werner, J.; White, R. D.; Whittington, D.; Wood, S.; Minatti, A. E., Development of 2-​aminooxazoline 3-​azaxanthene β-​amyloid cleaving enzyme (BACE) inhibitors with improved selectivity against Cathepsin D  Med. Chem. Comm., 2017, 8(6), pp1196-1206.
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2017/md/c7md00106a

Education

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Columbia University
Ph.D., Organic Chemistry, Princeton University
B.S., Organic Chemistry, Wuhan University, China