Zaka Yuen

Dr. Zaka Yuen is a Research Fellow at the Australian National University (ANU), affiliated with both the John Curtin School of Medical Research and the ANU College of Science and Medicine. Her primary affiliation is within the Division of Genome Sciences and Cancer, where she collaborates with Prof. Eduardo Eyras and Dr. Nadine Hein. She holds dual membership in The Eyras Group (Computational RNA Biology) and The Hannan Group (Cancer Therapeutics).

Dr. Yuen's research focuses on computational biology applications in long-read sequencing technologies, particularly nanopore sequencing for DNA methylation studies and forensic genomics. She completed her PhD at ANU in 2023, followed by an Honours degree at the University of Canberra in 2018. Her work includes developing bioinformatic pipelines for methylation profiling and exploring PCR-free nanopore targeting techniques like Cas9 enrichment.

Her recent research highlights include identifying age/body fluid-specific methylation markers for forensic science and investigating ribosomal DNA repeats in cancer progression. She has contributed to 3 peer-reviewed articles since 2021, with notable work in Nature Communications and Forensic Science International: Genetics. Dr. Yuen actively collaborates across disciplines, combining computational methods with wet-lab research in epigenetics and oncology.