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Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD
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About Me
Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, is the Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professor in Physiology and Biophysics and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is also Co-Director of the Drug Discovery Institute and Professor of Oncological Sciences. The Zhou lab studies gene transcription mechanisms in biology and diseases with a focus on epigenetic drug discovery.
Language
Position
Research Topics
Alzheimer's Disease, Biochemistry, Biophysics, Cancer, Chromatin, Drug Design and Discovery, Epigenetics, Gene Regulation, Inflammation, Structural Biology, T Cells, Transcription Factors
Multi-Disciplinary Training Areas
Cancer Biology [CAB], Disease Mechanisms and Therapeutics (DMT)
About Me
Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, is the Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professor in Physiology and Biophysics and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is also Co-Director of the Drug Discovery Institute and Professor of Oncological Sciences. The Zhou lab studies gene transcription mechanisms in biology and diseases with a focus on epigenetic drug discovery.
Language
Position
Research Topics
Alzheimer's Disease, Biochemistry, Biophysics, Cancer, Chromatin, Drug Design and Discovery, Epigenetics, Gene Regulation, Inflammation, Structural Biology, T Cells, Transcription Factors
Multi-Disciplinary Training Areas
Cancer Biology [CAB], Disease Mechanisms and Therapeutics (DMT)
About Me
Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, is the Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professor in Physiology and Biophysics and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is also Co-Director of the Drug Discovery Institute and Professor of Oncological Sciences. The Zhou lab studies gene transcription mechanisms in biology and diseases with a focus on epigenetic drug discovery.
Language
Position
Research Topics
Alzheimer's Disease, Biochemistry, Biophysics, Cancer, Chromatin, Drug Design and Discovery, Epigenetics, Gene Regulation, Inflammation, Structural Biology, T Cells, Transcription Factors
Multi-Disciplinary Training Areas
Cancer Biology [CAB], Disease Mechanisms and Therapeutics (DMT)
Education
PhD, Purdue University
Postdoctoral Fellow, Abbott Laboratories
Awards
2021
Fellow, the National Adademy of Inventors (NAI)
2019
The Jacobi Medallion, the Mount Sinai Health System
2012
Fellow, the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
2003
GlaxoSmithKline Drug Discovery and Development Award
1999
American Cancer Society Young Investigator Award
Research
The Zhou Laboratory focuses on unraveling the basic molecular mechanisms of chromatin-mediated gene transcription, essential for defining cell types and implicated in diseases. Dr. Zhou and colleagues study the structure-function and regulatory mechanisms of histone modifying enzymes (writers and erasers) and histone readers in gene transcription. Using a structural mechanism-guided strategy, they design chemical compounds to selectively modulate cell-type specific gene transcription. Notable contributions include the seminal discovery of the bromodomain as the first histone reader for acetyl-lysine recognition (Dhalluin et al., 1999) and revealing how gene regulatory proteins utilize combinatorial binding of modified histones to direct transcription (Zeng et al., 2010). Recent research provided unequivocal evidence for the influential ‘histone code’ hypothesis, illustrating how specific chemical modifications of a single histone residue (H3K27) dictate distinct gene transcription outcomes (Liu et al., 2023). Dr. Zhou’s pioneering work on chemical modulation of bromodomain/acetyl-lysine binding for disease treatment (Zeng et al., 2005) opened the field of bromodomain drug discovery pursued by the pharmaceutical industry.
Selected Publications
Dhalluin, C., Carlson, J., Zeng, L., He, C., Aggarwal, A.K., & Zhou, M.-M. (1999) Structure and Ligand of a Histone Acetyltransferase Bromodomain. Nature 399(6735): 491-496.
Zeng, L., Li, J., Muller, M., Yan, S., Mujtaba, S., Pan, C., Wang, Z., & Zhou, M.-M. (2005) Selective Small Molecules Blocking HIV-1 Tat and Coactivator PCAF Association. Journal of Am. Chem. Soc. 127(8): 2376-2377.
Zeng, L., Zhang, Q., Li, S.D., Plotnikov, A.N., Walsh, M.J., & Zhou, M.-M. (2010) Mechanism and Regulation of Acetylated Histone Binding of the Tandem PHD Finger of DPF3b. Nature 466(7303): 258-62.
Yap, K.L., Li, S., Munoz-Cabello, A.M., Raguz, S., Zeng, L., Mujtaba, S., Gil, J., Walsh, W.J., & Zhou, M.-M. (2010) Molecular Interplay of the Non-coding RNA ANRIL and Methylated Histone H3 Lysine 27 by Polycomb CBX7 in Transcriptional Silencing of INK4a. Molecular Cell 38(5): 662-674.
Shi, J., Wang, Y., Zeng, L., Wu, Y., Deng, J., Zhang, Q., Dong, C., Li, J., Rusinova, E., Zhang, G., Wang, C., Zhu, H., Evers, B.M., Zhou, M.-M., & Zhou, B.P. (2014) Disrupting the Interaction of BRD4 with Diacetylated Twist Suppresses Tumorigenesis in Basal-like Breast Cancer. Cancer Cell 25(2): 210-225.
Yu, D., Liang, Y., Kim, C., Jaganathan, A., Ji, D., Han, X., Yang, X., Jia, Y., Gu, R., Wang, C., Zhang, Q., Cheung, K.L., Zhou, M.-M., & Zeng, L. (2023) Structural Mechanism of BRD4-NUT and p300 Bipartite Interactions in Propagating Aberrant Gene Transcription in Chromatin in NUT Carcinoma. Nature Commun. 14(1): 378.
Liu, N., Konuma, K., Sharma, R., Wang, D., Zhao, N., Cao, L.L., Ju, Y., Liu, D., Wang, Shui, Bosch, A., Sun, Y.F., Zhang, S., Ji, D.L., Nagatoishi, S., Suzuki, N., Kikuchi, M., Wakamori, M., Zhao, C.C., Ren, C.Y., Zhou, T.J.C., Xu. Y.Y., Meslamani, J., Fu, S.B., Umehara, T., Tsumoto, K., Akashi, S., Zeng, L., Roeder, R.G., Walsh, M.J., Zhang, Q., & Zhou, M.-M. (2023) Histone H3 Lysine 27 Crotonylation Mediates Gene Transcriptional Repression in Chromatin. Molecular Cell 83(13): 2206-2221.
Locations
Publications
Selected Publications
- Structural mechanism of BRD4-NUT and p300 bipartite interaction in propagating aberrant gene transcription in chromatin in NUT carcinoma. Di Yu, Yingying Liang, Claudia Kim, Anbalagan Jaganathan, Donglei Ji, Xinye Han, Xuelan Yang, Yanjie Jia, Ruirui Gu, Chunyu Wang, Qiang Zhang, Ka Lung Cheung, Ming Ming Zhou, Lei Zeng. Nature Communications
- Bromodomain inhibitors and therapeutic applications. Bharath Kumar Gajjela, Ming Ming Zhou. Current Opinion in Chemical Biology
- Histone H3 lysine 27 crotonylation mediates gene transcriptional repression in chromatin. Nan Liu, Tsuyoshi Konuma, Rajal Sharma, Deyu Wang, Nan Zhao, Lingling Cao, Ying Ju, Di Liu, Shuai Wang, Almudena Bosch, Yifei Sun, Siwei Zhang, Donglei Ji, Satoru Nagatoishi, Noa Suzuki, Masaki Kikuchi, Masatoshi Wakamori, Chengcheng Zhao, Chunyan Ren, Thomas Jiachi Zhou, Yaoyao Xu, Jamel Meslamani, Shibo Fu, Takashi Umehara, Kouhei Tsumoto, Satoko Akashi, Lei Zeng, Robert G. Roeder, Martin J. Walsh, Qiang Zhang, Ming Ming Zhou. Molecular Cell