B. Sc., M.Sc.
Instructor
School of Kinesiology
604.986.1911 ext. 3075
Fir Building, room FR545
tonyyang2@capilanou.ca
Education
M. Sc., Human Nutrition, The University of British Columbia, 2023
B. Sc., Food, Nutrition, and Health, The University of British Columbia, 2020
Bio
Tony Yang is a nutritional scientist whose main research interests include nutritional epigenomics, epigenetics, cell biology of cancer, diet and cancer, cellular processes of inflammation, and the impact of our diets on the development of diseases (e.g., cancer, cardiovascular disease).
During his graduate studies, he specifically studied the anti-cancer impact of polyphenols derived from blueberries (pterostilbene) within liver cancer cells. Throughout his Master's program, he was a teaching assistant for many lower and upper-year nutrition courses. It was through these courses that he discovered an interest in teaching at the post-secondary level; in 2023, he was later awarded the Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant award.
Being a true basic scientist at heart, I enjoy diving into the details of the how we go about digesting and absorbing our nutrients. I believe that understanding these molecular processes allows for us to begin to understand how many diseases (e.g., inflammatory bowel disease, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease) are linked to our diet.
Through my understanding of epigenetics, I have come to appreciate and understand how certain dietary bioactive compounds, found abundantly in fruits and vegetables, can directly impact cellular transcription. This may then transiently impact our own cells' anti-inflammatory, antioxidant signalling pathways - which can potentially protect our bodies from excessive environmental damage.
Beetch, M., Harandi-Zadeh, S., Yang, T., Boycott, C., Chen, Y., Stefanska, B., & Mohammed, S. I. (2020). DNA methylation landscape of triple-negative ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) progressing to the invasive stage in canine breast cancer. Scientific reports, 10(1), 2415. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59260-4
Beetch, M., Boycott, C., Harandi-Zadeh, S., Yang, T., Martin, B. J. E., Dixon-McDougall, T., Ren, K., Gacad, A., Dupuis, J. H., Ullmer, M., Lubecka, K., Yada, R. Y., Brown, C. J., Howe, L. J., & Stefanska, B. (2021). Pterostilbene leads to DNMT3B-mediated DNA methylation and silencing of OCT1-targeted oncogenes in breast cancer cells. The Journal of nutritional biochemistry, 98, 108815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnutbio.2021.108815
Harandi-Zadeh, S., Boycott, C., Beetch, M., Yang, T., Martin, B. J. E., Ren, K., Kwasniak, A., Dupuis, J. H., Lubecka, K., Yada, R. Y., Howe, L. J., & Stefanska, B. (2021). Pterostilbene Changes Epigenetic Marks at Enhancer Regions of Oncogenes in Breast Cancer Cells. Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland), 10(8), 1232. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox10081232
Boycott, C., Beetch, M., Yang, T., Lubecka, K., Ma, Y., Zhang, J., Kurzava Kendall, L., Ullmer, M., Ramsey, B. S., Torregrosa-Allen, S., Elzey, B. D., Cox, A., Lanman, N. A., Hui, A., Villanueva, N., de Conti, A., Huan, T., Pogribny, I., & Stefanska, B. (2022). Epigenetic aberrations of gene expression in a rat model of hepatocellular carcinoma. Epigenetics, 17(11), 1513–1534. https://doi.org/10.1080/15592294.2022.2069386
Ziarniak, K., Yang, T., Boycott, C., Beetch, M., Sassek, M., Grzeda, E., Ma, Y., Sliwowska, J. H., & Stefanska, B. (2022). DNA hypermethylation of Kiss1r promoter and reduction of hepatic Kiss1r in female rats with type 2 diabetes. Epigenetics, 17(13), 2332–2346. https://doi.org/10.1080/15592294.2022.2119120
Kurzava Kendall, L., Ma, Y., Yang, T., Lubecka, K., & Stefanska, B. (2024). Epigenetic Effects of Resveratrol on Oncogenic Signaling in Breast Cancer. Nutrients, 16(5), 699. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16050699
Tello-Palencia, M. A., Yang, T., Sularz, O., Demers, L. E., Ma, Y., Boycott, C., Zhang, H. A., Lubecka-Gajewska, K., Kumar, S., Ramsey, B. S., Torregrosa-Allen, S., Elzey, B. D., Lanman, N. A., Korthauer, K., & Stefanska, B. (2024). Pterostilbene Targets Hallmarks of Aging in the Gene Expression Landscape in Blood of Healthy Rats. Molecular nutrition & food research, 68(24), e2400662. https://doi.org/10.1002/mnfr.202400662
Ma, Y., Boycott, C., Zhang, J., Gomilar, R., Yang, T., & Stefanska, B. (2025). SIRT1/DNMT3B-mediated epigenetic gene silencing in response to phytoestrogens in mammary epithelial cells. Epigenetics, 20(1), 2473770. https://doi.org/10.1080/15592294.2025.2473770