Ying Ge is a Chinese-American chemist who is a Professor of Cell and Regenerative Biology at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

. Her research considers the molecular mechanisms that underpin cardiac disease. She has previously served on the board of directors of the

American Society for Mass Spectrometry The American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) is a professional association based in the United States that supports the scientific field of mass spectrometry. As of 2018, the society had approximately 10,000 members primarily from the US, but ...

. In 2020 Ge was named on the Analytical Scientist Power List.

Early life and education

Ge was born in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. She attended

Peking University Peking University (PKU) is a Public university, public Types of universities and colleges in China#By designated academic emphasis, university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of the Peop ...

for her undergraduate studies, where she studied chemistry. After graduating in 1997 Ge moved to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, where she joined

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

as a doctoral student. Here she started to work on mass spectrometry, using

electron-capture dissociation Electron-capture dissociation (ECD) is a method of fragmenting gas-phase ions for structure elucidation of peptides and proteins in tandem mass spectrometry. It is one of the most widely used techniques for activation and dissociation of mass s ...

to study proteins. She worked under the supervision of

Tadhg Begley Tadhg P. Begley is an Irish chemist and Distinguished Professor, Robert A. Welch Foundation Chair and Derek Barton Chair of Chemistry at Texas A&M University, and also a published author of books. His honors include Elected Fellow of the America ...

and Fred McLafferty. After completing her doctorate, Ge worked as a research scientist at

Wyeth Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc. was a pharmaceutical company until it was purchased by Pfizer in 2009. The company was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1860 as John Wyeth and Brother. Its headquarters moved to Collegeville, Pennsylvania, a ...

Research and career

Ge joined the

as an assistant scientist, where she oversaw the

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is used ...

programme. She became an associate professor in 2015, and full professor in 2019. Ge develops high-resolution mass spectrometry

proteomics Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital macromolecules of all living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replicatio ...

to better understand cardiac disease. To image the very large proteins of human heart tissue, Ge combines

fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry is a type of mass analyzer (or mass spectrometer) for determining the mass-to-charge ratio (''m''/''z'') of ions based on the ion cyclotron resonance, cyclotron frequency of the ions in a ...

(FT–ICR) mass spectrometry with

. She has worked to create a top-down disease proteomic platform that allows for the separation, detection and characterisation of the biomarkers of heart damage. Nanoproteomics, a technique developed by Ge and co-workers, makes use of nanoparticles and high resolution mass spectrometry to capture and characterise cardiac

troponin Troponin, or the troponin complex, is a complex of three regulatory proteins (troponin C, troponin I, and troponin T) that are integral to muscle contraction in skeletal muscle and cardiac muscle, but not smooth muscle. Measurements of cardiac-spe ...

s, including

troponin I Troponin I is a cardiac and skeletal muscle protein family. It is a part of the troponin protein complex, where it binds to actin in thin myofilaments to hold the actin-tropomyosin complex in place. Troponin I prevents myosin from binding to act ...

. Being able to test for and characterise troponin I would help with the early detection and diagnosis of heart disease. The peptide-functionalised superparamagnetic nanoparticles are combined with top-down mass spectrometry to identify the molecular fingerprints of troponins. Rather than just detecting cardiac troponins, which is possible using

ELISA The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (, ) is a commonly used analytical biochemistry assay, first described by Eva Engvall and Peter Perlmann in 1971. The assay is a solid-phase type of enzyme immunoassay (EIA) to detect the presence of ...

-based antibody testing, this higher level of characterisation will allow Ge to identify various forms of modified troponins, allowing a personalised understanding of cardiac disease. Ge served on the board of the Top-Down Proteomics Consortium, on the editorial board of the Journal of Muscle Research and Cell Motility, as treasurer for the

(2016-2018).
Ying Ge
publications indexed by

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

Awards and honours

* 2016 Georges Guiochon Faculty Fellowship * 2018 H. I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship * 2019 Analytical Scientist Power List * 2020

Biemann Medal * 2020 Analytical Scientist Power List *2021

Human Proteome Organization The Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) is an international consortium of national proteomics research associations, government researchers, academic institutions, and industry partners. The organization was launched in February 2001, and it promotes ...

(HUPO) Clinical and Translational Proteomics Award *2021 Analytical Scientist Power List *2024 Analytical Scientist Power List, ranked #8 in "Human Health Heroes" field

Selected publications

* * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ge, Ying American people of Chinese descent University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Peking University alumni Cornell University alumni Chinese chemists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Mass spectrometrists Cardiovascular researchers 20th-century Chinese chemists 21st-century American chemists