Zhou, Anny Xiaobo
Primary Appointment
Professor of Medicine, Internal Medicine
Education
- B.S, Pharm.D, Clinical Pharmacy, Sichuan University
- Ph.D., Cell Biology, Peking Union Medical College
- Post-doctoral Fellow, Virology, Harvard Medical School
Contact Information
Aurbach Bldg, 450 Ray C Hunt Drive
Room 1234
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903
Telephone: 434-924-5946
Email: zhou1@virginia.edu
Research Disciplines
Biochemistry, Biology, Cell and Developmental Biology, Epigenetics, Genetics, Metabolism, Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Molecular Biology, Translational Science
Research Interests
Genetics, Functional Genomics, Epigenetics, Lung repair/regeneration, Metabolic regulation, Alveolar stem cells, Chromatin interaction, Innate immune response, Live-cell imaging
Research Description
During the development of chronic lung disease, repetitive environmental insults/injuries, such as cigarette smoke, respiratory viruses infection and allergy lead to ineffective repair in the genetically susceptible subjects. Molecular understanding on how such genetic factors modulate lung repair/regeneration process will potentially facilitate the identification of novel drug targets for treating complex lung disease in susceptible patients who carry risk alleles of common variants identified from genome-wide association studies (GWAS).
Our lab aims to address the missing knowledge gap between human genetic discoveries in GWAS and better understanding of lung biology especially during the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( COPD), idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and asthma by integrative and multidisciplinary approaches, including CRISPRi followed by single cell RNA screening for functional variants identification, and using lineage tracing mouse models, ex vivo organoid models and single live cell imaging to capture dynamic changes of various pathways regulating metabolic reprograming, exosome production and secretion, CD8+ T cells activation, innate immune response, alveolar niche-stem cell interaction to shape the fate of alveolar repair to either homeostasis or aberrant fibrosis or alveolar destruction seen in COPD lungs.
We hope to identify the converged pathways co-regulated by multiple GWAS genes in lung diseases as prioritized drug targets and also shared mechanism regulated by pleiotropy GWAS genes identified in multiple human complex traits to indicate possible re-purpose of existing drug to treat lung diseases.