Lan studied chemistry as an undergraduate student at Tsinghua University. Fascinated by molecular mechanisms, she went on to study the mechanism of DNA repair at Harvard with Professor Gregory Verdine. Upon completion of her Ph.D. at Harvard, Lan went on to join Professor Peter Walter’s lab at UCSF, where she made a series of discoveries on different aspects of cellular protein homeostasis. Lan’s postdoctoral work earned her a few recognitions and awards including the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Fellowship Award and the UCSF PBBR Postdoc Independent Research Award. Lan also received the Croucher Innovation Award to fund her lab’s research at HKUST.