Dr. Miffy Hok Yan Cheng

About Miffy

University of British Columbia

Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, Vancouver, Canada

Assistant Professor, LEGenD Lab

2025-Present

University of British Columbia

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Vancouver, Canada

Postdoctoral Fellow, Advisor: Prof. Pieter R Cullis

2021-2024

Princess Margaret Cancer Research Center

University Health Network, Toronto, Canada

Postdoctoral Fellow, Advisor: Prof. Gang Zheng

2018-2021

University of Hull

Department of Chemistry, Hull, UK

PhD, Chemistry, Advisor: Prof. Ross W Boyle

BSc, Chemistry with Molecular Medicine

2011-2018

Miffy is an Assistant Professor in the Nanomedicine and Chemical Biology theme of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of British Columbia, starting in January 2025. She leads the Lipid Nanoparticle-Enabled Gene Delivery (LEGenD) lab, which seeks to develop the next generation of nanomedicine, such as lipid nanoparticle (LNP) for gene therapy and vaccines.

Miffy has extensive fundamental training in chemistry and biomedical sciences, along with a broad range of research experience across institutions in the United Kingdom and Canada. She completed her BSc (2014) and PhD (2018) in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Hull, UK, where she worked with Professor Ross Boyle to develop porphyrins, BODIPYs, and selective targeting moieties. She further extended her expertise in building innovative cancer imaging nanoagents during her postdoctoral training (2018-2021) with Professor Gang Zheng at the Princess Margaret Cancer Research Centre (PMCRC) in Toronto. Subsequently, she joined Dr. Pieter Cullis's Nanomedicine Research Group (2021-2024) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) to expand her nanoengineering skillset to include mRNA delivery system design using lipid nanoparticle (LNP).