Yu Ling-Yea (尤鈴雅)

Yu Ling-Yea (尤鈴雅)

Ling-Yea loves English, science, history, and enjoyed music and reading. She studies pharmacy during college, and believed that devoting in pharmaceutical scientific research can be a challenging but world-changing task. Therefore she acquired her master degree in pharmacology in Dr. Feng-Chiao Tsai’s lab (FCT lab) at NTU, hoping to receive trainings of a scientific researcher and gain insights on drug and medicine discovery. She hopes that diving into the career drug discovery can bring a significant impact to the society we reside in.

Ling-Yea spent most of her master degree (and her later research assistant work) studying STK40-MAPK interaction in cell migration. STK40 is a novel serine-threonine kinase protein that may not have kinase function. Studying this novel research is not an easy task, just as discovering new planets in the dark universe. With the help of Ting-Jeng, a cheerful and smart master student, and Hsuan-Chao, a diligent and supportive doctoral student, they struggled hard to exclude improbable mechanisms and screen out possible ones. Soon they disclosed that STK40 has effect on focal adhesion and does interact with MAPK in regulating cytoskeleton in a non-kinase manner. Hopefully, together with other FCT lab companions they can further clarify the mysterious and unique protein, STK40, and publish this story soon.