Prof Yijun Qi

Yijun Qi is currently Associate Investigator at the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing, China.

Dr Qi is a plant molecular biologist, whose research focuses on dissecting the mechanisms of RNAi pathways and the biological functions of small RNAs in plants.

After gaining a PhD in Molecular Biology from Zhejiang University in 2001, Yijun began postdoctoral research at the Ohio State University, before moving to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2004. In 2006, he became Assistant Investigator at the National Institute of Biological Sciences, later taking on the role of Associate Investigator in 2010.

His laboratory has discovered miRNAs in single-celled green algae, identified a novel class of long miRNAs that direct DNA methylation, and provided insights into how small RNAs are sorted into plant Argonaute complexes.