Biography
Zhou received a B.S degree in Applied Chemistry (2003) from Peking University. He earned his PhD (2009) from Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Personal Statement
I have a broad background in biochemistry and cell biology, with specific expertise in arsenic carcinogenesis and toxicity research, DNA damage repair, oxidative stress, and mass-spectrometry based proteomics. I developed a mass-spectrometry based quantitative method in analyzing protein S-nitrosation in cells and animals, applied to multiple models, and generated a series of publications. I then took advantage of my expertise in mass-spec and oxidative stress, started research on molecular mechanism of DNA repair inhibition by environmental contaminant arsenic. My work revealed selective interaction of arsenic to certain zinc finger proteins, which provided evidence to why DNA repair protein PARP is a sensitive target of arsenic. I also successfully demonstrated the oxidative/nitrosative stress mechanism of arsenic toxicity.
Areas of Specialty
Specialization #1 Toxicity and carcinogenesis mechanisms of environmental metal exposure.
Specialization #2 Mass-spectrometry based proteomics on metal-protein interactions.
Specialization #3 Cancer genomics analysis of environmental mutagens.
Specialization #4 Oxidative stress and oxidative modifications of proteins.
Education
PhD, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2009 (Biophysics)
BS, Peking University, 2003 (Chemistry)
Research and Scholarship
Zhou’s primary research interests are
1) Molecular mechanism of arsenite-induced toxicology and carcinogenesis.
2) Roles of oxidative/nitrosative stress and protein oxidation/nitrosation in cancer development.
3) Mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomic analyses for metal-protein interactions.