Shanye Yin, PhD, director of the Pathology Single Cell & Bioinformatics Program and Assistant Professor of Pathology at Montefiore Einstein, was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Dean's Rising Star Scientific Investigator Award, recognizing outstanding early-career achievements in biomedical research. He was among the inaugural Dean’s Award recipients, including Liise-anne Pirofski, MD, Mimi Kim, ScD, Alyson Moadel-Robblee, PhD, and Richard N. Kitsis, MD, honored their contributions at the Spring Faculty Celebration held at Einstein on June 3, 2026.  

After joining Einstein in 2022, Dr. Yin launched an initiative to bring state-of-the-art single-cell and spatial technologies to the department, supporting both research advancement and resident training. His research group maps how cancer and immune cells interact inside tumors and connects those findings to patient outcomes. Using spatial transcriptomics, advanced sequencing, and computational methods, his team studies head and neck cancer, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, lung cancer, and adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma. Working alongside clinical teams, he is integrating AI analytics into diagnosis and treatment decisions. 

"We were very excited when Shanye chose to come to Einstein to begin his career as an assistant professor," said Michael Prystowsky, MD, PhD, Professor and Chair of Pathology at Montefiore Einstein. 

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Louis M. Weiss, MD, MPH, and Shanye Yin, PhD, at the Spring Faculty Celebration

"This award validates the research program he has built and the vision he has brought to the department," said Louis M. Weiss, MD, MPH, Professor of Pathology and Medicine (Infectious Diseases) and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs and Research, Pathology. "His energy, enthusiasm, and collaborative nature have made him an outstanding contributor to pathology and Montefiore Einstein."  

Publications and Research Funding

Dr. Yin has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles, with recent work appearing in Scientific Reports, the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer, and Science Advances.   A highly regarded 2026 paper in Clinical Cancer Research examined the connection between intratumoral microbiota and prognosis in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

His research program has received support from the National Cancer Institute, including a completed grant on the immune microenvironment in chronic lymphocytic leukemia and a current five-year, $2.8 million award with Harris Goldstein, MD, to investigate how HIV-HPV co-infection shapes immune response in oropharyngeal cancer.  
 
MECCC Translational Accelerator Program Pilot Project Awards $350,000 Pilot Project  
Most recently, Dr. Yin and Amit Verma, MD, Professor of Oncology, of Medicine, and of Developmental & Molecular Biology, were awarded funding through the Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center (MECCC) Translational Accelerator Program Pilot Project. The two-year, $350,000 award for their proposal, “AI-Guided Optimization of Low-Dose Therapy in MDS and AML Informed by Single-Cell Analysis,” supports translational cancer research designed to advance scientific discoveries toward early-phase clinical studies and improve cancer care for patients in the Bronx.  

ERCM-CFAR Pilot Grant to Study Anal Cancer Risk in People with HIV 
Dr. Yin and Keith Sigel, MD, Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, received a $50,000 Catalytic Pilot Grant from the Einstein-Rockefeller-CUNY/Mount Sinai Center for AIDS Research.  People with HIV face a disproportionately high risk of anal cancer, yet screening is not widely available, and clinicians lack reliable ways to predict which precancerous lesions will progress. Their project, “Immune Microenvironment Determinants of Anal Precancer Natural History in People with HIV,” will map the immune landscape of precancerous anal tissue to identify patients at greatest risk.  Dr. Yin directs the spatial analysis using the G4X spatial imaging platform, applying it to anal tissue specimens from a cohort of approximately 400 participants. The study compares matched samples from people with and without HIV, characterizing immune cell states and their spatial organization within the tissue. The goal is to generate data that can inform both risk stratification and clinical screening decisions. The findings are expected to support a future NIH application and will lay the groundwork for more targeted anal cancer prevention in people with HIV.

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2025, Dr. Yin launched a clinical rotation program for second-year Montefiore Einstein pathology residents

Resident Research and Mentorship 

In May 2025, Dr. Yin launched a clinical rotation program for second-year Montefiore Einstein pathology residents to learn how to apply spatial transcriptomics to routine surgical pathology practice. He has since mentored more than 10 residents, each completing two months of protected research time in his laboratory. Many continue collaborating with the lab after their rotation ends. Several projects have won awards at national conferences, including two top prizes at the 2026 USCAP Annual Meeting. 

“Receiving this Dean’s Award is a personal affirmation of my hard work, the power of collaboration, and the invaluable support of this institution,” Dr. Yin said. “Through this research, I hope to use single-cell spatial analysis and AI-driven approaches to advance precision medicine, aiming to translate our understanding of tumor biology into more effective, individualized cancer therapies.”