Ariel (Wei-Hsi) Yeh, PhD (Entered Harvard 2014, Graduated 2020)

With a background in biomedical engineering and research training from Dr. David Liu at HMS, Dr. Yeh’s doctoral research focused on making base editors, a precision genome editing technology, clinically relevant by developing delivery technologies and demonstrating their ability to correct a genetic mutation in mouse models. Dr. Yeh initiated a collaboration between Dr Liu’s lab at the Broad Institute, Dr. Jeffrey Holt’s lab at BCH and DR. Edge’s lab at MEE focusing on a gene therapy strategy to restore auditory transduction by repairing a point mutation in TMC1. This was the first gene correction approach for restoring auditory function in a model of congenital deafness. Dr. Yeh’s patents on genome editing have been licensed by startups and her research has been published in Nature Communications, Science Translational Medicine, and Nature Biomedical Engineering. Her work has been featured in media outlets, including Research Highlights by Nature Reviews, The Harvard Gazette, and ScienceDaily. After graduation, Dr. Yeh was one of the first scientists to join Prime Medicine, where she is using cutting edge technology to help cure genetic diseases through the development of genome editing therapeutics. Dr. Yeh was selected by for the 2021 edition of Forbes 30 under 30 in health care, a widely recognized community of young entrepreneurs and game-changers.