Dr. Yuan-Hua Ding is VP and Head of Pfizer Asia Discovery Labs (ADL), Emerging Science & Innovation (ES&I) at Pfizer Worldwide Research, Development and Medical (WRDM). He is also a member of the ES&I leadership team. In this capacity, Yuan-Hua builds and leads an entrepreneurial group of experimental scientists and skilled drug hunters to collaborate broadly with Asia Pacific biomedical R&D communities with the goal of translating promising science into clinical candidates. Yuan-Hua also manages WRDM’s Asia Innovation Fund (AIF) which provides flexible funding to academic collaborations, biotech alliances and NewCo seeding with partners in the Asia Pacific region.

Prior to his current job, Dr. Ding served a variety of roles in the Pfizer R&D division, including Head of External Science and Innovation - Asia Pacific, Head of Structural Biology at the Research Technology Center (RTC) in Cambridge, MA, Associate Research Fellow and Senior Research Scientist. As the Head of the RTC Structural Biology, he oversaw a group of scientists responsible for protein production, characterization, crystallization, crystallography and structure-based drug design. His group supported structural based drug design portfolio of 10+ programs, through collaborative efforts with RTC, Pfizer global structural biology groups and therapeutic area project teams, covering oncology, diabetes, inflammation and CNS. He also served as project leaders for several drug discovery programs with some into the clinics.

Dr. Ding received a bachelor’s degree in Electronic Engineering from Peking University in 1987 and a master’s degree in Biophysics from Tsinghua University in 1990. In 1996, after completion of doctoral studies in Biochemistry with Prof. John Rosenberg and Prof. Roger Hendrix at the University of Pittsburgh, he moved to Harvard University to become a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Don Wiley. Dr. Ding’s postdoctoral work focused on structural and biophysical aspects of molecular interactions among T-cell receptor (TCR), major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and peptide antigens. While in Prof. Wiley’s Lab, Dr. Ding also collaborated with Prof. Judah Folkman of Boston Children’s Hospital on structural studies of endostatin, a protein shown to be a potent angiogenesis inhibitor in mouse model.