Jin-Quan Yu

Jin-Quan Yu is a Chinese-born American chemist. He is the Frank and Bertha Hupp Professor of Chemistry at Scripps Research, where he also holds the Bristol Myers Squibb Endowed Chair in Chemistry. He is a 2016 recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. Yu is a leader in the development of C–H bond activation reactions in organic chemistry, and has reported many C–H activation reactions that could be applicable towards the synthesis of drug molecules and other biologically active compounds. He also co-founded Vividion Therapeutics in 2016 with fellow Scripps chemists Benjamin Cravatt and Phil Baran, and is a member of the scientific advisory board of Chemveda Life Sciences.

Early life and education Yu was born on January 10, 1966, in Zhejiang, China. He received his B.Sc. in chemistry at East China Normal University in 1987. He remained at the Guangzhou Institute of Chemistry for four years as a research associate.

In 1994, Yu moved to the United Kingdom to pursue graduate studies at the University of Cambridge with Prof. Jonathan B. Spencer. Yu graduated with his Ph.D. in 1999. From 2001-2002, Yu worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University in the laboratory of Prof. E. J. Corey on selective palladium-catalyzed allylic oxidation reactions. Yu returned to Cambridge in 2002 and continued in his position as a Junior Research Fellow.

Independent career Yu was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2003, which allowed him to start his independent research towards the development of asymmetric C–H activation reactions. A longstanding goal in organic synthesis, C–H activation would allow for inert, unreactive C–H bonds to be replaced with bonds to functional groups that can alter a molecule's reactivity and properties. One strategy to achieve selective C–H activation under mild conditions is to use metal-based catalysts that are guided to the targeted C–H bond by nearby directing functional groups. These directing groups often must be removed once the new functional group has been appended to the molecule. Other areas of interest are the development of remote C-H bond activation, for example at the meta-position to a directing group. Since many drugs and natural products are chiral, Yu has also developed important asymmetric C-H bond activation reactions, including those templated by modified amino acids that can act as transient, chiral directing groups.

Awards and memberships Yu is the recipient of numerous awards and honors for his work in organic chemistry reaction development, including a MacArthur Fellowship (also known as a "Genius Grant") in 2016.

Yu received the Pedler Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2016, and the Elias J. Corey Award for Outstanding Original Contribution in Organic Synthesis by a Young Investigator from the American Chemical Society. In 2012, he was awarded the Mukaiyama Award from the Japanese Society of Organic Synthesis, the ACS Cope Scholar Award, and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award. Eli Lilly Grantee Award (2008), Amgen Young Investigator's Award (2008), In 2026, Yu was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Personal life Yu has a daughter, Anna, and a son, Tony.