ZHAO Ziqing, Winston

The research in my group intersects optical imaging, molecular biology and physical chemistry, with a specific focus on developing and applying advanced imaging-based methodologies to quantitatively probe the biophysics of chromatin dynamics in single human cells. In particular, we are interested in understanding how molecular processes that modulate genome organization, accessibility and expression are regulated in space and time. By integrating approaches from optical microscopy/spectroscopy (e.g. super-resolution imaging, single-molecule tracking and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy), omic technologies, correlative strategies and computational analysis, our work aims to illuminate the physico-chemical driving forces (such as biomolecular phase separation) that govern chromatin dynamics and cell nuclear architecture in vivo. Current efforts in the group are focused on chromatin remodeling and nuclear membrane–chromatin interactions, as well as the physiological implications of their misregulation in human health and diseases (particularly cancer and aging-associated disorders).

Sielaff, H.; Zhao, Z. W., Visualizing, quantifying and mapping chromatin remodelers at work with single-molecule and single-cell imaging. Intl. J. Biochem. Cell Biol. 2024, 176, 106667. Engl, W.; Kunstar, A.; Chen, S.; Ng, W. S.; Sielaff, H.; Zhao, Z. W., Single-molecule imaging of SWI/SNF chromatin remodelers reveals bromodomain-mediated and cancer-mutants-specific landscape of multi-modal DNA-binding dynamics. Nat. Commun. 2024, 15, 7646. Ng, W. S.; Sielaff, H.; Zhao, Z. W., Phase Separation in Chromatin-based Intranuclear Processes. In Droplets of Life: Membrane-less Organelles, Biomolecular Condensates, and Biological Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation, ed. Vladimir Uversky, pp. 461–483. Cambridge, Mass.: Academic Press, 2023.