Zhou earned his B.S. in chemical engineering from the East China University of Science and Technology 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. He received the GlaxoSmithKline Drug Discovery Research Award in 2003 for his work in novel anti-HIV/AIDS therapy development. 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 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 disease, 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.
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
