NL
DE
My name is Rosemary Yu. I was born in Dandong, a port city in northeastern China. My family moved to Canada when I was young; I grew up in Toronto, Canada and obtained my PhD there. I then did a post doc in Gothenburg, Sweden. I am currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Department of Molecular Developmental Biology, in RIMLS-Science.
Where do you live?
I live in Nijmegen, near Dukenburg station.
When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up? Can you tell us something about your childhood years?
I wanted to be an astronaut when I was little. I loved space (still do), but hated Phys Ed (still do), so I suppose it was never meant to be.
What was your previous academic training, where did you study and why did you choose that study/those studies?
I have a PhD in Medical Biophysics from University of Toronto, Canada. I was interested in understanding the biophysical properties of cells in connection with a medical problem – recurrent metastatic breast cancer was what I chose to focus on. By the end of my PhD I wanted to do more computational work to look at (cancer) cell metabolism at the systems level, so I went to Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, and did a post doc in Systems and Synthetic Biology.
Which of your research discoveries are you most proud of?
When we found that up to 80% of the glycolytic enzymes expressed in a cell are not actually necessary for growth or survival – they are a part of a cell’s “strategic reserve”, kind of like a country’s oil reserve, or (obligatory mention since I’m Canadian) the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve. Yes, that’s a thing.
What is your most important scientific challenge in the coming 5 years?
To assemble my research team and further develop my metabolic models through a combination of wet lab data collection and dry lab computational simulations.
If you could choose any mentor, who would it be?
Judith Love Cohen
What is your favorite topic: molecules - patients - population?
Molecules and patients
What should be changed / improved in the scientific community?
The way (big) data is stored and accessed; strategies to tackle the reproducibility crisis.
Is there anything we can wake you up for in the middle of the night?
For an emergency
What is the thing that irritates you most?
If I’m woken up in the middle of the night, but not for an emergency
Who would you like to have dinner with, if you had the chance?
Chris Hadfield
How do you relax from the demanding job being a scientist?
Gardening, birdwatching, travelling
Do you have a tip for our most junior scientists?
Read a lot, including papers outside of your field.
Please add a photo which represents a remarkable event or experience you were part of? Please explain.
I co-founded the Chalmers BIO Postdoc Network together with 4 others (pictured) while doing my post doc in Sweden. We used this platform to tackle a number of issues in our Department including inequality of pay among post docs and a gender gap in hiring/promotions. I’m very proud of what we have achieved as a group!
