Yu was first introduced to the field of glycobiology in the final year of her undergraduate study at Imperial College London. With a particular interest in the glycan-binding receptors involved in immune responses, she then pursued a PhD degree with Professor Kurt Drickamer and Dr Maureen Taylor, during which time she investigated the importance of receptor geometry for initiation of signalling by mincle family glycan-binding receptors.

After completing her PhD degree in February 2022, she started a post-doctoral position in Schumann’s lab. Her ambition is to use engineered glycosyltransferases (MGAT1, MGAT2, and MGAT5) and bumped UDP-GlcNAc analogues as reporter systems to dissect the N-linked glycosylation pathway in mammalian cells. Yu’s favourite sugar is mannose, because its equatorial 3’OH and 4’OH groups interact with the primary sugar binding sites of the mincle family receptors.