The Laboratory of Biochemistry & Structural Biology of the University of Science and Technology of China was established in 2004. It is jointly composed of two independent scientific research laboratories led by Professors Zhou Congzhao and Chen Yuxing and is affiliated to the Division of Life Sciences and Medicine. The current laboratory members also include Associate Professor Jiang Yongliang, Associate Professor Li Weifang, Associate Professor Li Xu, Associate Professor Hou Wentao, Associate Professor Li Qiong, Assistant Laboratory Technician Ren Yanmin, multiple postdoctoral researchers, about 20 doctoral students, more than 10 master's students, and several undergraduate students.

The three major scientific issues that we currently focus on are: 1) the molecular mechanism of efficient carbon fixation and carbon-nitrogen balance regulation in cyanobacteria; 2) the molecular mechanism of cyanobacterial bloom formation and the synthetic biology intervention strategy based on cyanophages; 3) the working mechanism of membrane transport proteins related to major human diseases. The theoretical system and methodology of the laboratory include (but are not limited to) biochemistry, molecular biology, structural biology, microbiology, bioinformatics, synthetic biology, biophysics, and cell biology.

The laboratory's operating funds mainly come from: the Ministry of Science and Technology (973 and national key research and development projects, etc.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (key projects, joint funds, special projects, general projects, and youth projects), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (pilot projects A and B, seed innovation research institute), the Anhui Provincial Department of Science and Technology (key research and development, Anhui Outstanding Youth Fund), and the University of Science and Technology of China (new medical projects and various platform supports).

Our technical platforms include: protein purification, analysis and crystallization systems; single-particle cryo-electron microscopy research platform; cyanobacterial microbial genetic operation system; bioinformatics (AI biological large language model, genomics and transcriptomics) research platform, synthetic biology research platform, cell culture and analysis sorting system; enzymology research system, etc. In addition, we also share the large-scale instrument and equipment platform of the Division of Life Sciences and Medicine and the National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale.

Research results have been published in academic journals such as Nature sub-journals (Nature Plants, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Nature Cardiovascular Research, Nature Communications), PNAS, Cell Research, and Microbiome (for details, see the research results section).

We warmly welcome outstanding undergraduate and doctoral graduates from all over the world to join our team! We sincerely hope to carry out scientific research cooperation at various levels with domestic and foreign colleagues.

•       Dr. Cong-Zhao ZHOU

  Vice president, University of Science and Technology of China

  Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Life Sciences

  Tel: 0086-551-63600406

  Email: zcz@ustc.edu.cn        

•       Dr. Yuxing Chen

  Professor of Structural Biology

  School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China

  Tel: 0086-551-63602492

  Email: cyxing@ustc.edu.cn 

  
  

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