Ming-Ming Zhou
Encyclopedia
Ming-Ming Zhou, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized expert in structural
and chemical biology
, NMR spectroscopy
of protein structure-function and rational small-molecule
design. He is currently the Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professor and Chairman of the Department of Structural and Chemical Biology and Co-Director of the Experimental Therapeutics Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine
at the Mount Sinai Medical Center
in New York City
as well as Professor Oncological Sciences and Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics and Director of Mount Sinai's Translational Chemical Biology Center.
Zhou has published more than 110 peer-reviewed research articles and has received multiple grants from federal, state and private research foundations including the National Institutes of Health
, the National Science Foundation
, the New York State Stem Cell Science (NYSTEM), the Institute for the Study of Aging, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, the American Cancer Society
, GlaxoSmithKline
, the Michael J. Fox Foundation
, and the Wellcome Trust
. He serves on the editorial boards of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters
, the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology and Cancer Research
. He has been awarded 5 patents.
(Shanghai
, PRC) in 1984. He earned his M.S. in Chemistry
from the Michigan Technological University
in 1988 and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Purdue University
in Indiana
in 1993. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Abbott Laboratories
in Chicago, Illinois, then joined the Mount Sinai Medical Center in 1997.
Zhou’s research is directed at understanding the fundamental molecular mechanisms that govern cellular signal transduction and epigenetic control of gene transcription in human biology of health and disease by using combined structural/chemical biology and molecular/cell biology approaches. His research contributions include the discovery of the bromodomain as the acetyl-lysine binding domain in epigenetic gene regulation, the tandem PHD finger of DPF3b as a first alternative to the bromodomain for acetyl-lysine binding, and the PAZ domain as the RNA binding domain in RNAi. His recent work also addresses the role of histone lysine methylation (Nature Cell Biol. 2008) as well as long non-coding RNA in epigenetic control of gene transcription in human stem cell maintenance and differentiation.
Zhou's work in rational design of chemical probes for mechanism-driven research led to the discovery of the HIV
Tat/human co-activator PCAF
interaction as a potential novel anti-HIV therapy target. His group has also developed chemical probes that modulate the transcriptional activity of human tumor suppressor p53
under stress conditions. His recent work includes the development of a novel gene transcriptional silencing technology.
The current focuses of his laboratory include the roles of the Trithorax protein
complexes and the Polycomb
repressive complexes in gene activation and silencing in human biology of health and disease such as stem cell self-renewal and lineage commitment, cancer and inflammation. Additional research interests include the structure and mechanisms of epigenetic
gene regulation
and chromatin biology, structure-based small molecule design, mechanism-based disease biology and drug discovery in HIV/AIDS, human cancer, leukemia
and inflammation, neurodegenerative disorders including multiple sclerosis
, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
Current and past society memberships include The Harvey Society, the Biophysical Society
, the American Chemical Society
, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
, the American Association for the Advancement of Science
and the New York Academy of Sciences
. He serves on multiple editorial boards and reviews grants for the American Cancer Society
, the American Heart Association
, the National Institutes of Health
and the National Science Foundation
.
Structural biology
Structural biology is a branch of molecular biology, biochemistry, and biophysics concerned with the molecular structure of biological macromolecules, especially proteins and nucleic acids, how they acquire the structures they have, and how alterations in their structures affect their function...
and chemical biology
Chemical biology
Chemical biology is a scientific discipline spanning the fields of chemistry and biology that involves the application of chemical techniques and tools, often compounds produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and manipulation of biological systems. This is a subtle difference from...
, NMR spectroscopy
NMR spectroscopy
Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, most commonly known as NMR spectroscopy, is a research technique that exploits the magnetic properties of certain atomic nuclei to determine physical and chemical properties of atoms or the molecules in which they are contained...
of protein structure-function and rational small-molecule
Small molecule
In the fields of pharmacology and biochemistry, a small molecule is a low molecular weight organic compound which is by definition not a polymer...
design. He is currently the Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professor and Chairman of the Department of Structural and Chemical Biology and Co-Director of the Experimental Therapeutics Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Mount Sinai School of Medicine is an American medical school in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, currently ranked among the top 20 medical schools in the United States. It was chartered by Mount Sinai Hospital in 1963....
at the Mount Sinai Medical Center
Mount Sinai Hospital, New York
Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is one of the oldest and largest teaching hospitals in the United States. In 2011-2012, Mount Sinai Hospital was ranked as one of America's best hospitals by U.S...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
as well as Professor Oncological Sciences and Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics and Director of Mount Sinai's Translational Chemical Biology Center.
Zhou has published more than 110 peer-reviewed research articles and has received multiple grants from federal, state and private research foundations including the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
, the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
, the New York State Stem Cell Science (NYSTEM), the Institute for the Study of Aging, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, the American Cancer Society
American Cancer Society
The American Cancer Society is the "nationwide community-based voluntary health organization" dedicated, in their own words, "to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives, and diminishing suffering from cancer, through research, education, advocacy, and...
, GlaxoSmithKline
GlaxoSmithKline
GlaxoSmithKline plc is a global pharmaceutical, biologics, vaccines and consumer healthcare company headquartered in London, United Kingdom...
, the Michael J. Fox Foundation
The Michael J. Fox Foundation
The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson's disease through an aggressively funded research agenda and to ensuring the development of improved therapies for those living with Parkinson's today. Established by actor Michael J...
, and the Wellcome Trust
Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 as an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. With an endowment of around £13.9 billion, it is the United Kingdom's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research...
. He serves on the editorial boards of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters
ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters
ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of medicinal chemistry. Founded in 2009, this online journal was published monthly by the American Chemical Society in 2010 and then bi-monthly in 2011....
, the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology and Cancer Research
Cancer Research (journal)
Cancer Research is a scientific journal published by the American Association for Cancer Research. Its focus is original research papers relating to cancer and cancer-related biomedical sciences. The first edition was published in 1941.-Indexing:...
. He has been awarded 5 patents.
Biography
Zhou earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the East China University of Science and TechnologyEast China University of Science and Technology
East China University of Science and Technology is a state key university of the People's Republic of China and one that is regarded as the cradle of Chinese chemical engineers.- History :...
(Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, PRC) in 1984. He earned his M.S. in Chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
from the Michigan Technological University
Michigan Technological University
Michigan Technological University is a public research university located in Houghton, Michigan, United States. Its main campus sits on on a bluff overlooking Portage Lake...
in 1988 and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
in Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
in 1993. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Abbott Laboratories
Abbott Laboratories
Abbott Laboratories is an American-based global, diversified pharmaceuticals and health care products company. It has 90,000 employees and operates in over 130 countries. The company headquarters are in Abbott Park, North Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded by Chicago physician, Dr....
in Chicago, Illinois, then joined the Mount Sinai Medical Center in 1997.
Zhou’s research is directed at understanding the fundamental molecular mechanisms that govern cellular signal transduction and epigenetic control of gene transcription in human biology of health and disease by using combined structural/chemical biology and molecular/cell biology approaches. His research contributions include the discovery of the bromodomain as the acetyl-lysine binding domain in epigenetic gene regulation, the tandem PHD finger of DPF3b as a first alternative to the bromodomain for acetyl-lysine binding, and the PAZ domain as the RNA binding domain in RNAi. His recent work also addresses the role of histone lysine methylation (Nature Cell Biol. 2008) as well as long non-coding RNA in epigenetic control of gene transcription in human stem cell maintenance and differentiation.
Zhou's work in rational design of chemical probes for mechanism-driven research led to the discovery of the HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
Tat/human co-activator PCAF
PCAF
P300/CBP-associated factor , also known as K acetyltransferase 2B , is a human gene and trancriptional coactivator associated with p53.-Structure:...
interaction as a potential novel anti-HIV therapy target. His group has also developed chemical probes that modulate the transcriptional activity of human tumor suppressor p53
P53
p53 , is a tumor suppressor protein that in humans is encoded by the TP53 gene. p53 is crucial in multicellular organisms, where it regulates the cell cycle and, thus, functions as a tumor suppressor that is involved in preventing cancer...
under stress conditions. His recent work includes the development of a novel gene transcriptional silencing technology.
The current focuses of his laboratory include the roles of the Trithorax protein
Trithorax-group proteins
Trithorax-group proteins are chromatin regulatory proteins which generally act to maintain gene expression. This group of proteins is rather heterogeneous and contains members that form several multiprotein chromatin complexes...
complexes and the Polycomb
Polycomb-group proteins
Polycomb-group proteins are a family of proteins first discovered in fruit flies that can remodel chromatin such that epigenetic silencing of genes takes place...
repressive complexes in gene activation and silencing in human biology of health and disease such as stem cell self-renewal and lineage commitment, cancer and inflammation. Additional research interests include the structure and mechanisms of epigenetic
Epigenetics
In biology, and specifically genetics, epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence – hence the name epi- -genetics...
gene regulation
Regulation of gene expression
Gene modulation redirects here. For information on therapeutic regulation of gene expression, see therapeutic gene modulation.Regulation of gene expression includes the processes that cells and viruses use to regulate the way that the information in genes is turned into gene products...
and chromatin biology, structure-based small molecule design, mechanism-based disease biology and drug discovery in HIV/AIDS, human cancer, leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
and inflammation, neurodegenerative disorders including multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
Current and past society memberships include The Harvey Society, the Biophysical Society
Biophysical Society
The Biophysical Society is an organization consisting of over 9,000 researchers in academia, government, and industry. Based in the USA, its international membership has grown to about 1/3 of the total. Founded in 1957 by Ernest C...
, the American Chemical Society
American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 161,000 members at all degree-levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical...
, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is a learned society that was founded on December 26, 1906 at a meeting organized by John Jacob Abel...
, the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
and the New York Academy of Sciences
New York Academy of Sciences
The New York Academy of Sciences is the third oldest scientific society in the United States. An independent, non-profit organization with more than members in 140 countries, the Academy’s mission is to advance understanding of science and technology...
. He serves on multiple editorial boards and reviews grants for the American Cancer Society
American Cancer Society
The American Cancer Society is the "nationwide community-based voluntary health organization" dedicated, in their own words, "to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives, and diminishing suffering from cancer, through research, education, advocacy, and...
, the American Heart Association
American Heart Association
The American Heart Association is a non-profit organization in the United States that fosters appropriate cardiac care in an effort to reduce disability and deaths caused by cardiovascular disease and stroke. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas...
, the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
and the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
.
Awards and honors
- 2009 Elected to the Academy of Sciences & Arts at Michigan Technological University
- 2006 Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professorship in Physiology and Biophysics
- 2003 GlaxoSmithKlineDrug Discovery and Development Award
- 1999 American Cancer Society Young Investigator Award
Patents
| Title | Number |
|---|---|
| “Methods of Identifying Modulators of the FGF Receptors” | 20060019296 |
| “Methods of Identifying Modulators of Bromodomains” | 7,589,167 |
| “Methods and Compositions for the Treatment of Disorders of HIV Infection” | USSN10/413,785 pending |
| “Small-Molecular Chemicals That Inhibit HIV Tat Interactions with Human PCAF in Viral Transcriptional Activation” |
US Provisional PA, pending. |
| “Method of Suppressing Gene Transcription Through Histone Lysine Methylation” | US Provisional PA Serial No. 61/041,363, pending |
External links
- The Mount Sinai Hospital homepage
- The Mount Sinai School of Medicine homepage
- Experimental Therapeutics Institute at the Mount Sinai Medical Center