Group Leader

Yingguang Frank Chan

Date of Birth: Nov 1, 1979
Nationality: British (Overseas) and German

Children: 2 (born April 2015 and April 2017)

Education and Training

2012 – Present Max Planck Research Group Leader (Associate/W2 level; 5+2+2 fixed term)
Friedrich Miescher Laboratory, Tübingen, Germany
2009 – 2012 VolkswagenStiftung Postdoctoral Fellow under Prof. Dr. Diethard Tautz
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany
2003 – 2009 PhD in Developmental Biology, advisor: Prof. David M. Kingsley
Stanford University, Stanford CA, USA
2001 Research Intern, LION Bioscience AG, Heidelberg, Germany
2000 Research Assistant, Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory
1999-2003 BA (Honors) in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
Wesleyan University, Middletown CT, USA

Honors and Awards

2010 Walter M. Fitch Prize Finalist
2008                     AAAS/Science Program for Excellence in Science
2003                     Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society (Gamma Chapter)
2003                     Scott Biomedical Prize for Excellence in Biology
1999                     Hong Kong SCMP Student Linguist of the Year
1999                     Dr. Li Fook Sin Scholarship

Fellowship and Grants

2021 Cornell Genome Innovation Hub, collaborator with N. O. Therkildsen
2021 – 2024 BBSRC, Co-P/I with C. Jiggins & J. Mappes
2021 Genome Innvoation Hub, U. Queensland, AU, Co-P/I
2021 – 2023 FWO, Collaborator/co-P/I with H. Svardal
2020 – 2023 Bilateral BBSRC-FAPESP - Co-P/I with C. Jiggins, T. Walsh and A. S. Corrêa
2014 – 2020 ERC Starting Grant – HybridMiX (1,500,000€)
2012 Max Planck Research Group Leader (approx. 2,000,000€ over five years)
2011 Young Researcher, Lindau Nobel Meeting (supported by Max Planck Society and the Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung)
2010 – 2012 Postdoctoral Fellow, VolkswagenStiftung: Evolutionary Biology (160,000€)
2010                     EMBO Longterm Fellowship (gratefully declined)
2010 A. v. Humboldt Research Fellowship (gratefully declined)
2003 – 2006 Affymetrix Bio-X Fellow, Stanford Graduate Fellowship
2001                     CDS International Summer Internship Program
2000, 2002          Howard Hughes Summer Research Fellowship
1999 – 2003 Freeman Asian Scholar

Selected Invited Presentations

2021
Illumina (Webinar), San Diego, USA
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA

2020
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Cambridge, UK.
IMP. Vienna, AT.
University of Hamburg, Hamburg, DE.

2019
University of California, Davis. Dept. of Evolution and Ecology. Davis, CA, USA.
University of California, Berkeley. Molecular & Cell Biology. Berkeley, CA, USA.
Cornell University. Cornell Center for Comp. and Pop. Genomics. Ithaca NY, USA.
Max Planck Institute of Plant Breeding. Cologne, DE.
Stanford University, Dept of Developmental Biology. Stanford, CA, USA.Frontiers in Biology (Cross-departmental seminar series)

2018
Wellcome Genome Campus. Hinxton, UK. Advanced Course: NGS Bioinformatics

2017
University of Zurich, Inst of Pharmacology and Toxicology. Zürich, CH.
Edinburgh Alliance for Complex Trait Genetics. Edinburgh, UK. Keynote speaker.
MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine (IGMM). Edinburgh, UK.

2016
Cambridge Institute, Cancer Research UK. Cambridge, UK.
BMS Section Symposium, Max Planck Society. Berlin, DE.
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Genetics. Berlin, DE.
Univ. of Geneva, Dept of Genetics and Evolution. Geneva, CH.
EMBO Symposium: New Model for Evolution and Ecology. Heidelberg, DE.
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics. Dresden, DE.

2015
VetMedUni. Vienna, AT. (Departmental seminar series)
Max Planck Institute for Ageing. Cologne, DE.
Université de Lausanne, Center for Integrative Genomics. Lausanne, CH.

2014
EuroEvoDevo, Vienna, AT.
Wild Mouse Workshop. Plön, DE.
Institute de Génomique Fonctionnelle de Lyon. Lyon, FR.
MPI for Cell Biology and Genetics. Dresden, DE. (Postdoc-invited Guest Speaker)
Selected Contributed Presentations (oral only)

2020
International Conference of Quantitative Genetics, Brisbane, Australia
Evolutionary Systems Biology. Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, UK.

2019
Wild Mouse Meeting. Brno, CZ.

2018
Genetics Society (Genotype to Phenotype to Fitness). Exeter, UK.
Evolutionary Systems Biology. Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, UK.

2017
EMBL Conference, Mammalian Genetics and Genomics. Heidelberg, DE.

2016
Genetics Society (Func. Genetic Variation in the Non-coding Genome). London, UK.
Advances in Evolutionary Genomics, Conférence Jacques Monod. Roscoff, FR.

2014
Systems Genetics and Evolution. Ascona, CH.
Size and Shape. Göttingen, DE.

2012
Evolution 2012. Ottawa, CA.
Advances in Evolutionary Genomics, Conférence Jacques Monod. Roscoff, FR.

2011
European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) Congress. Tübingen, DE.
EvoDevo Keystone Symposium. Lake Tahoe CA, USA.

2010
Walter M. Fitch Prize Symposium. Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution Meeting. Lyon, FR.

2009
International Society for Developmental Biology Congress. Edinburgh, UK.

Thesis Supervision

Moritz Peters - from 2020
Volker Soltys - from 2020
Dingwen Su - from 2020
Michelle Yancoskie - defended Nov. 2019
João P. L. Castro - defended May 2020, magna cum laude
Rebecka Wombacher - 2014, MSc thesis
Mohannad Dardiry - 2014 – 2015, MEME (LMU), 1^st Thesis
Moritz Peters - 2018 – 2019, MSc thesis
Volker Soltys - 2018 – 2019, MSc thesis
Dingwen Su - 2019, MSc thesis

Thesis advisory committee member for 10 additional students (1 completed)

Referee and Reviewing

Journals: Science, eLife, Nature Review Genetics, Developmental Cell, Current Biology, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Molecular Ecology, Molecular Ecology Resources, Comprehensive Physiology, PLoS ONE, BMC Evolutionary Biology
Funding agencies: ERC/European Research Council (External expert, Advanced and Consolidator Grants), SNSF/Swiss National Science Foundation (Sinergia), BBSRC/UK Biotech Research Council, FWF/Austrian Science Fund, NSF/US National Science Foundation, NWO/Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, FCT/Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, GACR/Czech Science Foundation, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

Computer Languages

Bash, Perl, python, MySQL, R, C++, Mathematica

Languages

English (fluent), French (fluent), German (fluent), Cantonese (native), Mandarin (fluent)