Jason Yang

jasonyanglab.orgYang Lab at Rutgers NJMSThe Yang Lab at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis and treatment of chronic and infectious diseases. We develop approaches for a...

6 Aug

I am happy to share that we are recruiting a postdoc with previous #tuberculosis research experience for a Mtb systems biology project focused on gene networks! Please visit our lab website (www.jasonyanglab.org) and our ad (tinyurl.com/ms92bmj8) for more information!

1 July

I'm thrilled to share that the lab has received its first R01!! Together with Shuyi Ma and Christoph Grundner, we will be exploring how M tuberculosis gene networks regulate drug tolerance. More soon, but we will be recruiting postdocs and graduate students!

sciencedirect.comOpportunities for artificial intelligence and synthetic biology in designing living drug delivery systemsAdvances in artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology are transforming biological research and biotechnology. These fields are for the first …

28 Apr

AI and synthetic biology are revolutionizing bioengineering. We're now in a time when these technologies are synergizing to create "living" drug delivery vehicles. @bashorlab.bsky.social and I discuss this at Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

jobs.rutgers.eduOpen Rank- multiple positions availableThe Center Emerging and Re-emerging Pathogens and the Public Health Research Institute at New Jersey Medical School, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, located in Newark, NJ, invites applications...

13 Mar

Happy to share that my research center at Rutgers NJMS is hiring tenure-track faculty at all ranks! We are broadly interested in infectious disease research from experimental to computational. Please ask questions and join our community! jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/139...

sciencedirect.comFermentative growth decreases the iron demand of Staphylococcus aureusIron (Fe) is an essential nutrient for S. aureus survivability and pathogenesis, but excess Fe can catalyze the formation of toxic oxygen radicals, em…

30 Sept 2025

Very happy to share some more good news. Our collaboration with Jeffrey Boyd's lab is now published at J Inorganic Biochemistry! Here, Jeff found that iron limitation reprograms S. aureus metabolism towards fermentation. We're grateful to be part of this study. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

pnas.orgPNASProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

16 Sept 2025

Happy to share that our collaboration with Christina @stallingslab.bsky.social at WUSTL is out at @pnas.org ! Led by Erin Wang, they found that routing carbon away from peptidoglycans sensitizes Mtb to INH, even in DR-Mtb! Grateful to be part of this project! www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Jason Yang reposted

Michael Manhart

@michaelmanhart.bsky.social

2 Sept 2025

I am recruiting a Ph.D. student in microbial ecology, evolution, and systems biology for fall 2026. Please share! Details: qevomicrolab.org/Documents/Gr... Apply by October 1 here: forms.gle/38pPS1Ky84HB...

2 Sept 2025

I'm pleased to share that the preprint for our collaboration study on MIS-C in pediatric COVID-19 patients is now available on medRxiv. In this study led by Marila Gennaro at Rutgers NJMS, we report that antibody repertories vary with clinical presentation of COVID-19 in children.

medRxivpreprint@medrxivpreprint.bsky.social

Antibody repertoire associated with clinically diverse presentations of pediatric SARS-CoV-2 infection https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.22.25331300v1

8 Aug 2025

It's nearing the end of the summer and our undergrads have been presenting on their research at their respective summer research symposia. Terrific work by Jonah Simone at the Rutgers Health BMIHAI Symposium and Gianna Elie at the NJMS URSE Symposium!

1 Aug 2025

I'm excited to share that we've received a NIBIB Trailblazer Award to advance our work on engineering therapeutic macrophages! Grateful for our team and excited to launch this collaboration with the Caleb @bashorlab.bsky.social at Rice!

sciencenews.dkStressed bacteria develop antibiotic resistance more easilyWhen bacteria are under energy stress – burning more energy than they produce, it increases their chances of developing antibiotic resistance. A new study offers new insight into how antibiotic...

31 July 2025

Many thanks to ScienceNews.dk for highlighting our work!

go.njmicrobe.orgFueling the Fight: How Bacterial Metabolism Drives Antibiotic Resistance and PersistenceThe global rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a daunting challenge for modern medicine, directly contributing to over a million deaths in 2019 alone. Understanding the complex ways bacteria eva...

26 June 2025

Thank you @njmicrobe.bsky.social for this really nice writeup about our work!

Theobald Smith Society@njmicrobe.bsky.social

Bacteria under energy stress evolve antibiotic resistance faster. New work from Jason Yang’s lab, Rutgers shows how ATP imbalance drives mutagenesis, ROS production, and persistence. A big leap in understanding AMR. go.njmicrobe.org/Fs4R5J #AMR #Microbiology #JasonYang #Rutgers #AntibioticResistance

Jason Yang reposted

Nature Portfolio

@natureportfolio.nature.com

18 June 2025

A study in Nature Communications shows that constitutive hydrolysis of ATP and NADH, or ‘bioenergetic stress,’ potentiates the evolution of antibiotic resistance and persistence in E. coli. #medsky 🧪

go.nature.comBioenergetic stress potentiates antimicrobial resistance and persistence - Nature CommunicationsThe bactericidal action of some antibiotics is associated with increased ATP consumption, cellular respiration, and reactive oxygen species formation. Here, Li et al. show that constitutive hydrolysis of ATP and NADH (or ‘bioenergetic stress’) potentiates the evolution of antibiotic resistance and persistence in E. coli.

rutgers.eduRutgers Health Research Identifies New Trigger Accelerating Antibiotic ResistanceNew Jersey Medical School study finds metabolic stress drives antibiotic tolerance and speeds resistance.

11 June 2025

@rutgersu.bsky.social published a very nice article about our work! www.rutgers.edu/news/rutgers... @njms-mdphd.bsky.social

nature.comBioenergetic stress potentiates antimicrobial resistance and persistence - Nature CommunicationsThe bactericidal action of some antibiotics is associated with increased ATP consumption, cellular respiration, and reactive oxygen species formation. Here, Li et al. show that constitutive hydrolysis...

I'm thrilled to share the newest paper from the Yang Lab! Ever wonder how bacterial metabolism affects antibiotic resistance #AMR? In this study, Barry Li, a former MD/PhD student in the lab, took on this question using a systems and #synthetic_biology approach. 1/n www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We're eager to explore these topics in future projects and to see how generalizable these phenotypes are to pathogenic E coli and other species. We think these mechanisms may inform design of antibiotic adjuvants that can slow or prevent resistance development. 10/n

Many thanks to many members of the Yang Lab who contributed to this project (including many undergrads!) and to our collaborators Douglas McCloskey and Xiaoyang Su! 11/11 @njms-mdphd.bsky.social

By developing a new assay, Barry showed that mismatches between ATP utilization and production (disrupting ATP homeostasis) are sufficient for augmenting antibiotic killing. Thus, Barry's work introduces new concepts in understanding the interplay between energy balance and antibiotic efficacy. 8/n

Importantly, little is known on how energy balance alters bacterial physiology. Although metabolic stress is known to inhibit growth and enhance metabolism, our work is the first to study stress responses and antibiotic phenotypes caused by disrupted energy balance. 9/n

This was also surprising that we previously showed that high levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) were associated with high antibiotic killing, but the pF1 and pNOX cells had decreased killing while also possessing high levels of ROS! 6/n

Using bacterial genetics approaches, Barry was able to show that bioenergetic stress mechanistically induces stress responses that increase antibiotic stress-induced mutation rates and that protect against antibiotic killing. 7/n

Surprisingly, Barry found that bioenergetically stressed cells evolve antibiotic resistance FASTER than control cells (!!) and are also in general protected from bactericidal antibiotic stress (persistence). 4/n

Correlations between ATP availability and persistence are known and are usually thought about as correlations between metabolic activity (e.g., dormancy, low ATP) and killing efficacy. But Barry's cells have HIGH metabolic activity, which we previously found to INCREASE antibiotic killing. 5/n

Barry generated a genetic model system (frequently used by the metabolic engineering community) involving E coli cells over-expressing ATP synthase F1 complex genes (pF1) or heterologously expressing NADH oxidase from Streptococcus (pNOX). 2/n

These strains constitutively hydrolyze ATP (pF1) or NADH (pNOX), creating ATP or NADH sinks in these cells. These in turn induce 'bioenergetic stress' in which the cells are always struggling to meet their energetic demands. 3/n

wix.toHonoring Innovation and Resilience: Dr. Jason Yang Receives the 2025 Theobald Smith Young Investigator AwardThe Theobald Smith Society is proud to present the 14th Young Investigator Award to Dr. Jason H. Yang, Assistant Professor and Chancellor Scholar at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. A rising star in...

14 May 2025

Honored to receive this year's Young Investigator Award from our local ASM branch!

Theobald Smith Society@njmicrobe.bsky.social

Congrats to Dr. Jason Yang, winner of the 2025 TSS Young Investigator Award! His work at Rutgers uses machine learning & systems biology to tackle AMR, TB & more. A rising leader in biomedical science. Read more here: wix.to/tL2l4fi #Leadership #Microbiology #Innovation #SystemsBiology #Rutgers

14 May 2025

Yang Lab had a terrific time at Rutgers' Biomedical Health Informatics and Artificial Intelligence Symposium yesterday. Great jobs by Yiqi Yan, Oliver Gu, and Reuven Rosen who presented on their work!

6 May 2025

Our undergraduate machine learning maestro Edson Petry gave a terrific research presentation this afternoon at the Rutgers Pathways for Junior Scientists Research Program! #Rutgers #NJMS

24 Apr 2025

I'm so proud of my technician Lia Goodwin who presented a poster at her first conference at the CSHL Systems Immunology meeting yesterday!

frontiersin.orgFrontiers | Predicting fitness in Mycobacterium tuberculosis with transcriptional regulatory network-informed interpretable machine learning

Ever wonder how Mycobacterium #tuberculosis deals with stressful environments? I'm pleased to share that in a second piece of good news this week, our recent work in collaboration with Shuyi Ma (Seattle Children's) was published at Frontiers in Tuberculosis. 1/n www.frontiersin.org/journals/tub...

We are now using this work as a launching point for studying how individual (clinical) strains survive host and antibiotic stress and are eager to collaborate if you have some interesting phenotypes that you think are geneically regulated! 5/n

Terrific work by Ethan Bustad, Edson Petry, Oliver Gu, Braden Griebel, and Tige Rustad and wonderful support from our collaborator David Sherman (U Washington)! @rutgershealth.org 6/6

frontiersin.orgFrontiers | Predicting fitness in Mycobacterium tuberculosis with transcriptional regulatory network-informed interpretable machine learning

We performed gene regulatory network analyses to directly infer transcription factor activities from gene expression profiles. Using data from a TF over expression screen (TRIP), we trained an interpretable machine learning model that predicts Mtb fitness from RNA expression. 3/n

We found that transcription factor activities are better predictors of fitness under hypoxia than TF expression alone. Moreover, these analyses demonstrated that interpretable machine learning can reveal transcriptional programs causally regulating fitness under stress. 4/n

frontiersin.orgFrontiers | Predicting fitness in Mycobacterium tuberculosis with transcriptional regulatory network-informed interpretable machine learning

Pathogens live in hostile environments and must activate transcriptional stress response programs to survive exogenous stressors. In work led by Ethan Bustad, we sought to study Mtb fitness under hypoxic stress using systems biology approaches. 2/n

2 Apr 2025

I am thrilled to share that our rock star MD/PhD student Barry Li successfully defended his PhD today entitled "Bioenergetic stress potentiates antimicrobial resistance evolution and persistence"! Barry is our first student to finish his PhD and I am so incredibly proud of him!

nature.comMicrobiology and infectious diseasesThis page highlights recent articles on all aspects of bacteriology, mycology, parasitology and virology, covering the biology of pathogens, host-pathogen ...

3 Dec 2024

Pleased to share our papers are highlighted by the editors at Nature Communications: www.nature.com/collections/...

rutgers.eduResearchers Reveal Why a Key Tuberculosis Drug Works Against Resistant StrainsRutgers Health study uncovers vulnerabilities in drug-resistant TB, offering hope for improved treatments.

14 Nov 2024

Rutgers published a very nice story on our recent work! www.rutgers.edu/news/researc...

nature.comCatalase activity deficiency sensitizes multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis to the ATP synthase inhibitor bedaquiline - Nature CommunicationsMultidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis threatens global control of tuberculosis disease. Here, the authors investigate mechanisms underlying the collateral sensitivity of MDR Mycobacterium tuberculosi...

Thrilled to share that we have 2 new manuscripts on drug-resistant #tuberculosis out at @NatureComms ! In this pair of manuscripts, we investigated changes in #mtb physiology associated with INH resistance. 1/n www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This work also highlights the importance of microbiological basic science in studying infectious disease phenotypes and the utility of systems biology approaches (including network modeling and genetic screening) for revealing new mechanisms. 7/n

We're grateful for our wonderful collaborators including Shuyi Ma and Greg Cook! 8/8

In accompanying work led by Cecilia Wang in Matt McNeil's lab at the University of @otago, we found via CRISPRi that catalase deficiency induces several druggable vulnerabilities that may be targeted by future antibiotics to combat MDR-TB. 5/n

In particular, we found INH-resistant Mtb to be vulnerable to protein translation inhibitors, including linezolid. Together, these papers provide several new mechanistic insights into #mycobacterial physiology that we think provide valuable new drug targets. 6/n

Using #systemsbiology approaches, we discovered BDQ hypersensitivity in INH-resistant and MDR cells is caused by potentiated BDQ-induced ROS generation, increased susceptibility to DNA damage, induction of sensitizing transcriptional programs, 3/n