演讲题目（Title）： RNA structurome reveals the second layer of genetic information

演讲时间： 7月30日上午10:00-11:30

演讲地点：中国人民大学 环境学院楼316会议室

报告摘要（Abstract）：The most remarkable findings in the past two decades in biology include how the mammalian genome is largely transcribed and how versatile functions RNA molecules can have. RNA structure may play a critical role in defining its function and regulation. However, due to lack of information, our knowledge on RNA structural language is very limited. In this talk, I will describe our recent effort in using new chemistry and deep sequencing techniques to probe RNA structures within a tube and also inside a cell, on a genome-wide scale. The study provides both the landscape and also the variation of human and mouse structural tran1111ome. Analysis reveals structure features behind many important biological processes including translation, RNA methylation, and RNA-protein interaction etc. Our results highlight the potentially broad contribution of RNA structure and its variation to gene regulation.

演讲人介绍（Bibliography）： Dr. Qiangfeng ZHANG , Ph.D., is an assistant professor and principle investigator in the Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University. Dr. Zhang received his B.S. and first Ph.D. from University of Science and Technology of China in 2000 and 2006, respectively, and his second Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2006. He worked as a postdoc at Columbia and Stanford, before he joined Tsinghua in 2015. Dr. Zhang’s research interest focuses on the new area of Structural Systems Biology by combining computational and high-throughput experimental investigations. Through analysis of the conservation of local structural elements in the whole protein structural space, Dr. Zhang developed a coarse-grained structural modeling method that can accurately and effectively reconstruct protein-protein interaction networks s on a genome-wide scale (Nature 2012, PNAS 2010). Dr. Zhang also developed high-throughput experimental methods that use enzymatic cleavage or small molecule probing, combined with next generation sequencing techniques to profile in vitro and in vivo structures of the whole tran1111ome (Nature 2014, Nature 2015). The results reveal the structural-functional relationships of RNA molecules, and how RNA structures may be associated with disease. Dr. Zhang also involved in the development of a technique to identify protein-RNA interactions, a method is specifically useful for the study of non-coding RNA regulation and functions (Cell 2015). Dr. Zhang’s most current interests are to apply these structural systems biology methods to study protein-RNA interactions, non-coding RNA structure, function and evolution, as well as their involvement in human disease, in particular cancer and infectious disease caused by RNA viruses, with the ultimate goal of precise medicine and treatment for their prevention and cure.