Ya Dong obtained her Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Medicinal Chemistry under the guidance of Professor Jianhua Liu (School of Medicine) and Professor Zhankui Sun (School of Pharmaceutical Sciences) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. She then pursued postdoctoral research in the Aggarwal Group at the School of Chemistry,University of Bristol. In 2024,she joined the Zuo Lab as a postdoctoral fellow.