Alina Yang

Alina Xiaoyu Yang is a postdoctoral associate within the Center for Integrated Solutions for Infectious Diseases (CISID) at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She joined the Hwang lab in September 2025 with a research focus on host-directed therapy (HDT) against respiratory viruses.

Dr. Yang received her Ph.D. in Pathobiology from Brown University in 2025 and B.S. in Integrative Biology from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2020. Her doctoral dissertation examines the anti-influenza innate immune responses in relation to type 3 interferon signaling.

Respiratory viruses pose a significant global health challenge. Current treatments primarily target viral genomes or proteins; however, viruses can rapidly develop resistance, necessitating the continual development of new vaccines or drugs. Emerging viruses further compound this challenge. At the Hwang lab, Dr. Yang continues to investigate host interaction with respiratory viruses in vivo and aims to develop host-directed, broad-spectrum antiviral (HDT) therapies for respiratory viruses—offering a strategy to combat both known and emerging pathogens.