Zhang Group: Systems chemical biology
Dr. Hong-Yu Zhang
Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Informatics
Huazhong Agricultural University
Tel: 86-27-87285085
Fax:86-27-87280877
E-mail: zhy630@mial.hzau.edu.cn
Education and research experience
l 1988.09~1992.07: Undergraduate student, Department of Biology, Shandong University
l 1992.08~1997.01: Doctorate candidate, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
l 1997.02~2000.06: Lecturer, Professor (from 1998.11), Department of Biology, Shandong Normal University
l 2000.07~2009.01: Specially Appointed Professor, School of Life Sciences, Shandong University of Technology
l 2009.02~2014.06: Professor, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University (2010.09~2010.10: Visiting Professor, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)
l 2014.07~present: Dean, Professor, College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University
Research members
n Dr. De-Xin Kong, Professor, Chemoinformatics & Drug Design
n Dr. Qing-Ye Zhang, Associate professor, Computational Biol.
n Dr. Xiong-Hui Zhou, Associate professor, Big Data Integration
n Dr. Qiang Zhu, Associate professor, Statistical Analysis
Research Interest of The Systems Chemical Biology Group
The group is dedicated to addressing challenging issues in life sciences in terms of fundamental physical/chemical principles and then, to utilizing the research fruits to direct biomedical practice. Our major research interests are focused on the following three areas.
Systems evolution biology. We are interested in using small biological molecules as molecular fossils to explore the mechanisms underlying the origin and evolution of life. Through analyzing the distribution patterns of small molecules in protein space, we proposed the ligand-selection model for protein origin (Ji et al. 2007). In addition, using the geological ages of some molecular fossils, we calibrated the molecular clock of protein architectures, which allowed us to trace the evolutionary history for a series of important metabolic reactions and provide deeper insights into the co-evolution between biochemistry and geochemistry (Wang et al. 2011; Kim et al. 2012). As a pioneer of bringing 3D genomics into evolutionary biology, we revealed the spatial colocalization of ohnolog pairs in 3D nuclear organization, which shed new light on the evolutionary mechanisms for dosage balance of ohnologs (Xie et al. 2016).
Systems genetics. Through synthesizing cDNA display and proximity ligation techniques, we invented a method, called One-Pot-seq, to determine complex protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions in a single experimental system, by which we explored the chemical basis and evolutionary mechanisms for transcriptional regulation specificity (Kang et al. 2019). Applying HotNet2 algorithm, we performed systems genetics analysis on GWAS and PheWAS data for hundreds of diseases, and elucidated the pathogenesis in terms of transcriptional regulation, protein-protein interactions and epistasis.
Drug discovery and precision medicine. Using systems biology/genetics methods, such as HotNet2, GeneRank, SNF, K-shell, and MR, a series of potential drug targets and biomarkers were identified for cancer and neurological diseases, some of which have been successfully applied in drug discovery and precision medicine (Wang and Zhang 2013; Quan et al. 2018).
