Molecular Biosciences Welcomes Coral Y. Zhou to Faculty
LAWRENCE - Coral Y. Zhou, Ph.D. will begin to serve as an assistant professor in KU’s Department of Molecular Biosciences beginning in January 2025. Along with teaching, Dr. Zhou will also be conducting research with the Center for Genomics. Dr. Zhou and her laboratory will be working to understand how genomes, the collection of DNA and the complex molecular machinery acting on DNA, are dynamically organized to drive different biological phenomena including embryogenesis, evolution and disease.
Dr. Zhou’s research specifically focuses on genome size. The size of a genome can be conceptualized and measured in two ways. First, genomes differ vastly in terms of the number of nucleotides, the basic building block of DNA. In fact, the difference in the number of nucleotides between the smallest genome (a bacterium) and the largest genome (a fern) is over 6 orders of magnitude! Another second way to think about genome size is the amount of physical space that the DNA is occupying. A genome containing a constant number of nucleotides can be either stretched out or compacted depending on the physical and molecular forces acting upon the DNA molecule. The way the genome is packaged in 3D space has an enormous impact on the function of the genome and consequently the behavior of the cell and organism.
The African clawed frog Xenopus is uniquely amenable to studying questions about genome size control because their genomes naturally undergo drastic changes in genome size in both ways described above. Through the natural course of evolution, different Xenopus species have evolved by doubling their genome content, or number of nucleotides, through a process known as polyploidization. Also, because these frogs lay thousands of enormous eggs which can be fertilized ex vivo, we can also easily visualize the process of embryogenesis and study how genome compaction contributes to this process. Answering these questions will have a major impact on our understanding how 3D genome organization arises in early life, which will influence the way we think about human life as well.
Dr. Zhou comments, “In general, humans and frogs have pretty similar genome sizes. However, frogs are much better polyploidization over the course of evolutionary time, generating new frog species along the way. Humans are generally resistant to this type of genome duplication with one major exception—in cancer. Cancer cells tend to have really large genomes, but we don’t fully understand how this happens or why. So, the idea is, if we can study how frogs have naturally evolved to accommodate their giant genomes, then perhaps we can we use this knowledge as a springboard for designing new cancer therapeutics.”
The University of Kansas was a particularly beneficial destination for Dr. Zhou’s research interests. The Center for Genomics was certainly a big draw, and being able to start her lab in a cohort of other new faculty hires (Dr. Allie Graham, Dr. Emily Beck, Dr. Hans Dalton) sealed the deal. She says, “I am an extremely community-centric person. I have a total ‘we are in this together’ attitude, which is not always encouraged in the academic environment. But when I met Allie, Emily, and Hans at the Genomics Center Symposium this spring, I just knew that they would be my community. Since then, they have helped me so much with my transition to KU and Lawrence!” Zhou commented that another reason she chose to come to KU was another KU Professor, Dr. Yoshi Azuma, had previously done work with Xenopus. She says “Yoshi had been a virtual collaborator of mine for years, and when I got to meet him in person, I was simply amazed at how easy going and knowledgeable he is! I am excited to be his colleague.”
Dr. Zhou is particularly enthused about working with future generations of KU students, saying, “A big reason that I wanted to come to KU is it reminds me of where I went to undergrad (The University of Maryland). […] When I visited KU, it just felt like home to me because it’s a big state school, a big sports school, and a land grant university where you find a huge diversity of students in terms of their interests, background, and culture.”
In addition to research, Dr. Zhou is also excited to be a teacher and mentor. She says, “I love the idea of working with undergrads. It's a really big deal for me because I fell in love with science and research as an undergrad, and I remember that whole process so well. I’ll never forget my excitement and joy the first time I successfully purified a protein! It took a lot of help and encouragement from my mentors, and I can’t wait pay it forward with my own students...soon!” In addition to undergraduate education, Dr. Zhou is passionate about graduate-level training, saying, “I believe strongly in training graduate students how to think critically and independently. The cultivation of this skill takes immense time and effort, but the journey is well worth it because once it’s complete, students can think through any problem, contributing to society both in their careers and personal lives”.