Yu Heng Lau The 44th Lorne Conference on Protein Structure and Function 2019

Yu Heng Lau

Dr Yu Heng Lau is a Senior Lecturer and research group leader in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney. Yu Heng completed a PhD in organic chemistry at the University of Cambridge, then moved to Harvard Medical School as a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow in bioengineering. In mid-2017, he was recruited back to Sydney as a Lecturer and DECRA fellow, where he has established a research program that spans the fields of medicinal chemistry and synthetic biology. Yu Heng is recognised for developing new chemical methods for peptide cyclisation to target oncogenic protein-protein interactions. He has also established genome-scale engineering methods for the reprogramming of synthetic microorganisms, and protein engineering methods for manipulating in vivo self-assembly. Currently, the two main research themes in his lab are: 1) Developing cancer therapeutic leads for protein complexes that dysregulate genome stability at telomeres, and 2) Engineering protein cages as synthetic organelles for controlling biocatalysis.