Yujia Qing

Yujia Qing is an Associate Professor (Organic Chemistry) and Tutorial Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Sheffield, UK in 2012, followed by a Master’s degree in Pharmacology at the University of Oxford. From 2014, she pursued and completed her DPhil in Chemical Biology in Prof. Hagan Bayley’s group and continued postdoctoral research. In 2019, she received the Reaxys PhD Prize and Dream Chemistry Award; in 2020, she was awarded the Glasstone Research Fellowship and elected as a Magdalen College Fellow by Examination; since 2022, she has served as an Associate Professor at the University of Oxford.

Her research mainly focuses on single-molecule chemistry and nanopore technology: using engineered protein nanopores as nanoreactors to achieve real-time monitoring of single bond breakage and formation, analyzing the chemical behavior of polymers under nanopore confinement, and developing “molecular motors” that can move biopolymers within nanopores for sequencing analysis. She is also committed to developing new strategies for achieving vectorial catalysis through protein nanoreactors.

Selected Publications:
1. Lim ZH, Bo Z, Armstrong E, Bayley H, Qing Y. Unexpected diastereoselective chemistry on a 2D protein surface. Chem (2025).
2. Qing Y, Bayley JHP. Molecular hopper. US Patent 12,247,990 (2025).
3. Wang X, Kerckhoffs A, Riexinger J, Cornall M, Langton MJ, Bayley H, Qing Y. ON–OFF nanopores for optical control of transmembrane ionic communication. Nat Nanotechnol. 2025;20(3):432–440.
4. Liu J, Qing Y, Zhou L, Chen S, Li X, Zhang Y, Bayley H. Enzyme-Enabled Droplet Biobattery for Powering Synthetic Tissues. Angew Chem Int Ed. 2024;63(44):e202408665.
5. Ng B, Ding Y, Cornall M, Kumar RK, Qing Y, Bayley H. Multifunctional systems in synthetic biology: single-stranded DNA signaling for precise control of gene activation. bioRxiv. 2024.10.26:619289.