Weibin Zhou, PhD

Dr. Zhou is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine. After receiving his Ph.D. degree in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan, Dr. Zhou had his postdoctoral training under the mentorship of Dr. Friedhelm Hildebrandt at the University of Michigan Medical School, concentrating on the establishment of zebrafish kidney as a new model system for human renal diseases. He performed the functional studies of genes that, when mutated, cause inheritable pediatric kidney diseases (nephronophthisis and nephrotic syndrome) and established a number of genetic tools for zebrafish kidney research. He also characterized the development and the regeneration of adult zebrafish kidney (mesonephros). Dr. Zhou was appointed as Carl W. Gottschalk Research Scholar by the American Society of Nephrology (2012-2014). Dr Zhou was promoted to Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in 2013. Dr. Zhou joined the Duke University School of Medicine as a faculty member and staff scientist at the Center of Human Disease Modeling in 2018. Currently, his research is focusing on genetics of polycystic kidney disease and renal glomerular diseases in zebrafish models.

The long-term goal of Dr. Zhou’s research is to understand the pathogenic mechanisms and develop therapies of kidney diseases using zebrafish pronephros (embryonic fish kidney) and mesonephros (adult fish kidney) as an animal model system. His ongoing projects are: (1) using haploid zebrafish to screen for genetic modifiers of polycystic kidney disease (2) functional characterization of candidate modifier genes for diabetic nephropathy using a zebrafish model of insulin insufficiency and hyperglycemia. (3) functional test of candidate genes associated with chronic kidney diseases identified through computational analyses of single-cell transcriptome.