News
2025
Zhichao has received the NCI Transition Career Development Award (K22). This grant will support research on investigating the role of trans-acting factors and cis-element sequences in oncogene activation in rearranged human genomes, with a central hypothesis that quantitative oncogene expression modeling should include the variable binding of trans-acting factors and promoter sequences.
We had our first lab photo since we had four people in the lab at Japanese Ramen Gachi!
Lanning has started as a Research Assistant in the lab. Welcome aboard, Lanning!
Dr. Xiaolin Wei has started as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab. Xiaolin and Zhichao have been friends and colleagues for years, as they graduated from the same lab at Tsinghua University. Although trained in two different labs for postdoctoral research, Xiaolin and Zhichao were still in close connection and in the same field. As Xiaolin is actively searching for faculty positions, he is also helping Zhichao to set up his research programs here in Houston.
Our first Research Assistant, Yanjin Fu, has started her journey with us! Welcome aboard, Yanjin!
Zhichao has started his lab in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He will spend the next two weeks attending orientation, furnishing his apartment, undergoing training, and getting to know the neighborhood. So exciting!
I had a roadtrip from San Diego to Houston, where I made two stops at the Saguaro National Park and the White Sands National Park. Stunning views!
2024
I have accepted the appointment to the faculty of McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston), with the rank of Assistant Professor, on the tenure track, in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. I am expected to start his new journey on April 1st, 2025.
The previous Biorxiv paper titled “A STAG2-PAXIP1/PAGR1 axis suppresses lung tumorigenesis” is accepted at the Journal of Experimental Medicine. In collaboration with Dr. Monte Winslow at Stanford, this work uncovered the function of STAG2 in a mouse lung cancer model. Dr. Xu contributed to the genome conformation profiling and data analysis, and was responsible for writing and preparing the figures for this section of the manuscript.
Our manuscript, “Heterogeneity in chromatin structure drives core regulatory pathways in B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia,” is submitted to BioRxiv and Nature Genetics. In this work, Dr. Xu profiled over 50 primary pediatric B-ALL samples using Hi-C, ATAC-seq, and RNA-seq, and identified distinct 3D genome structures across transcriptional subtypes linked to B-cell developmental stages.
Our manuscript, “A STAG2-PAXIP1/PAGR1 axis suppresses lung tumorigenesis,” is submitted to BioRxiv and the Journal of Experimental Medicine. In collaboration with Dr. Monte Winslow at Stanford, this work uncovered the function of STAG2 in a mouse lung cancer model. Dr. Xu contributed to the genome conformation profiling and data analysis, and was responsible for writing and preparing the figures for this section of the manuscript.