Yi Arial Zeng did her PhD at Simon Fraser University in Canada and postdoctoral work at Stanford University. She has been a principal investigator at Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2010.

Her research interest is to understand the regulatory mechanisms of adult stem cells in various tissues, and the interaction between stem cells and their niche. She has focused her efforts on Procr (protein C receptor), which a target of Wnt signaling, and has been established as a surface marker of adult stem cells in multiple tissues, including the mammary gland, the blood vessel endothelium, the hematopoietic system, and the ovarian epithelium. Her recent work demonstrates that Procr also marks the long-sought pancreatic islet stem cells.The long-term goal of her research is to determine how the stem cell regulatory mechanisms have deviated in diseases, and to learn how to control the players in these machineries in vivo, as well as to provide ever-expanding stem cells in vitro for the purpose of regenerative medicine.