Yoon Jung Kim, Ph.D. - Faculty Profile

Biography

Yoon Jung Kim, Ph.D., earned her bachelor's degree in environmental engineering from Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul and stayed to complete her master's in environmental microbiology. From there, she pursued a Ph.D. in chemical and biomolecular engineering from the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon. Then she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in genetics at Yale University School of Medicine, where she studied transcriptional mechanisms modulated by enhancer and chromosome structure in cell development and disease. As a research scientist, she continued to work on gene regulation, establishing multiple genomic techniques.

Dr. Kim joined Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) in 2019 as a research scientist focused on genomics and gene regulation by phase-separate condensate formation and cell-specific enhancers. In 2023, she was promoted to Assistant Professor of Research in CRI. She also helps support CRI's Sequencing Shared Facility.

Publications

Featured Publications

Cis and trans regulatory mechanisms of extrachromosomal DNA segregation.: Xie Y, Lim JYS, Liu W, Gilbreath C, Sun X, Qiao K, Kim YJ, Wu S, Nat Cell Biol 2026 Jun
A transcriptional biosensor reveals mechanisms of α-ketoglutarate signaling to chromatin.: Sternisha AC, Li H, Gajendra K, Xiao Y, Zhao X, Traylor JI, Guo L, Jun JH, Fleishman M, Shipman T, Puliyappadamba VT, Kaphle P, Ouyang Q, Schmidt M, Shi DD, Savani MR, Tsai AC, Lee JH, Gordillo R, Garcia-Bermudez J, Kim YJ, Tso SC, Brautigam CA, Zacharias LG, Mathews TP, Xu L, Doench JG, Koduri V, Abdullah KG, Agathocleous M, Banaszynski LA, DeBerardinis RJ, Morrow EM, McBrayer SK, Science 2026 Jul 393 6808 eadx8675
Dose-dependent hormone actions at estrogen receptor enhancers specify distinct molecular and biological outcomes.: Kim HB, Nandu T, Kim YJ, Camacho CV, Kraus WL, Sci Adv 2026 Jun 12 23 eaec2424
NAD⁺ sensing by PARP7 regulates the C/EBPβ-dependent transcription program during adipogenesis.: Stokes MS, Kim YJ, Kim Y, Koul S, Chiu SP, Liu C, Dasovich M, Zuniga J, Nandu T, Huang D, Mathews TP, Solmonson A, Camacho CV, Kraus WL, Cell Rep 2026 Feb 45 2 116929
LINE-1 Locus Transcription Nucleates Oncogenic Chromatin Architecture.: Lee M, Zhang Y, Lim JYS, Dai T, Ye J, Cervantes MB, Sondhi V, Zheng S, Kim YJ, Chen B, DeBerardinis RJ, Xu J, Cancer Discov 2026 Jan
Reconstructing the three-dimensional architecture of extrachromosomal DNA with ec3D.: Chowdhury B, Zhu K, Li C, Alsing J, Luebeck J, Stefanova ME, Chapman OS, Kraft K, Zhang S, Lim JYS, Xie Y, Kim YJ, Wu S, Chavez L, Nir G, Henssen AG, Mischel PS, Chang HY, Bafna V, Nat Commun 2025 Dec
Silencing of BCL11A by Disrupting Enhancer-Dependent Epigenetic Insulation.: Wang K, Wang J, Feng R, Dudnyk K, Kim YJJ, Lim JYS, Lee M, Zhang Y, Gao X, Cheng Y, Orkin S, Zhou J, Weiss MJ, Yue F, Xu J, Blood 2025 Nov
Acquired Cross-resistance in Small Cell Lung Cancer due to Extrachromosomal DNA Amplification of MYC paralogs.: Pal Choudhuri S, Girard L, Lim JYS, Wise JF, Freitas B, Yang D, Wong E, Hamilton S, Chien VD, Kim YJ, Gilbreath C, Zhong J, Phat S, Myers DT, Christensen CL, Mazloom-Farsibaf H, Stanzione M, Wong KK, Hung YP, Farago AF, Meador CB, Dyson NJ, Lawrence MS, Wu S, Drapkin BJ, Cancer Discov 2024 Feb
Structural variation cooperates with permissive chromatin to control enhancer hijacking-mediated oncogenic transcription.: Botten GA, Zhang Y, Dudnyk K, Kim YJ, Liu X, Sanders JT, Imanci A, Droin N, Cao H, Kaphle P, Dickerson KE, Kumar KR, Chen M, Chen W, Solary E, Ly P, Zhou J, Xu J, Blood 2023 Jul 142 4 336-351
Light-activated macromolecular phase separation modulates transcription by reconfiguring chromatin interactions.: Kim YJ, Lee M, Lee YT, Jing J, Sanders JT, Botten GA, He L, Lyu J, Zhang Y, Mettlen M, Ly P, Zhou Y, Xu J, Sci Adv 2023 Mar 9 13 eadg1123

Professional Associations/Affiliations

Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern