Haifan Lin PhD

Haifan Lin, PhD, is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Cell Biology, Professor of Genetics, of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, and of Dermatology, Founding Director of Yale Stem Cell Center. Dr. Lin’s work is focused on the self-renewing mechanism of stem cells, using Drosophila germline stem cells, mouse germline stem cells, mouse embryonic stem cells, Hydra, and planarian stem cells as models. He also studies germline development and stem cell-related cancers.

Dr. Lin received his B.S. degree from Fudan University (1982) and his Ph.D. degree from Cornell University (1990). Following his postdoctoral research at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, he joined the faculty of Duke University Medical School in 1994, where he rose to the rank of Full Professor. He founded and directed the Duke Stem Cell Research Program (2005-2006) and moved to Yale in 2006 to establish and direct the Yale Stem Cell Center, building it from just two labs to currently one of the largest stem cell research organizations in the world with 100 member labs. With Yale's support, he was the Founding Dean (Adjunct) of the School of Life Science and Technology at ShanghaiTech University (2014-2022), where he established a world-class faculty and educational programs in the School.

Dr. Lin has made key contributions to the demonstration of stem cell asymmetric division and the proof of the stem cell niche theory. He discovered the Argonaute/Piwi gene family and elucidated their essential function in stem cell self-renewal and germline development. He is also a discoverer of a novel class of non-coding small RNAs called PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), a discovery hailed by Science Magazine as one of the Ten Scientific Breakthroughs in 2006. More recently, he proposed and demonstrated the crucial roles of the Piwi-piRNA pathway in epigenetic programming of gene expression and in post-transcriptional regulation of mRNAs and lncRNAs.