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Lu Gan

Lu Gan

Associate Professor, Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics

Email
[email protected]
Website
https://www.anaphase.org/

Bio & Overview

We aim to understand how eukaryotic cells control chromatin structure. Knowledge of chromatin-structure at the level of its nucleosome subunits inside cells will give far-reaching mechanistic insight into gene regulation, replication, cell proliferation, and development. We are testing hypotheses about how nucleosome DNA structure rearrange and how they change in their packing modalities in different cell states. Our lab uses both yeast and human cells as model systems and we employ state-of-the-art cryo electron tomography and gene editing to study the function of nuclear proteins and enzymes.

Academic Information

Department
Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics

Primary Education

  • B.S., Physics, California Institute of Technology, 2001
  • Ph.D., Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 2006
  • Postdoc, Strucutral Cell Biology, California Institute of Technology, 2011

Research Interests

Chromosome organization; Nucleosome structure; Histone marks; Structural cell biology

Research Disciplines

  • Biology
  • Biophysics & Structural Biology
  • Cancer Biology
  • Cell and Developmental Biology
  • Epigenetics
  • Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics
  • Molecular and Cellular Physiology
  • Structural Biology

Research Opportunities

  • Biophysics & Structural Biology
  • Cancer Biology
  • Cell Biology
  • Chemistry and Physics of Living Systems
  • Epigenetics

PhD Programs

  • Biophysics
  • Physiology

Selected Publications

† = equal contribution; * = corresponding author

Preprints

 

Selected

Chen JK, Liu T, Cai S, Ruan W, Ng CT, Shi J, Surana U, Gan L* (2025), Nanoscale analysis of human G1 and metaphase chromatin in situ. EMBO J in press

Tan ZY†, Cai S†, Paithankar SA, Liu T, Nie X, Shi J, Gan L* (2025), Macromolecular and cytological changes in fission yeast G0 nuclei. J Cell Sci 138: jcs263654

Tan ZY†, Cai S†, Noble AJ†, Chen JK†, Shi J, Gan L* (2023), Heterogeneous non-canonical nucleosomes predominate in yeast cells in situ. eLife 87672

Chong YY C, Gan L* (2023), Are extraordinary nucleosome structures more ordinary than we thought? Chromosoma 132(3): 139-152 (Review)

Ma OX, Chong WG, Lee JKE, Cai S, Siebert CA, Howe A, Zhang P, Shi J, Surana U, and Gan L* (2022), Cryo-ET detects bundled triple helices but not ladders in meiotic budding yeast, PLOS ONE: 17: e0266035

Cai S, Chen C, Tan ZY, Huang Y, Shi J, Gan L* (2018), Cryo-ET reveals the macromolecular reorganization of S. pombe mitotic chromosomes in vivo. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115: 10977-10982

Cai S†, Böck D†, Pilhofer M*, Gan L* (2018), The in situ structures of mono-, di-, and trinucleosomes in human heterochromatin. Molecular Biology of the Cell 29: 2450-2457