News

  • Sept. 19, 2024, brought a cake to the lab and got a surprise invitation to take a picture together 😊Thank you everyone for making our lab a great place to be! Glad everyone liked the yummy cake 😋

  • Sept. 11, 2024, Congratulations to Ambreen! She have been selected to receive ASHG’s Resource-Limited Country Travel Award to the American Society of Human Genetics Annual Meeting :tada::partying_face:
  • Sep. 2nd, 2024, Dr. George Murray started his first day as a postdoctoral research associate. Welcome George !👏🎉
  • Aug. 30, 2024, a fun lab get together to welcome Ambreen and George and celebrate our R21 grant at Medina Mediterranean grill 🎉 🎉 🎉
  • Aug. 21, 2024, our R21 has been funded. Yeah🎉🎊🎈 The proposal entitled “Evaluating novel transcription factors in regulating astrocyte identity, reactivity, and their roles in neurodegenerative disease pathogenesis.” It is a collaborative work with Dr. Erik Musiek.
  • Aug. 15, 2024, Dr. Ambreen Kanwal joined us as a postdoctoral research associate. Welcome Ambreen!👏🎉
  • July 27, 2024, we welcome Harsha to our growing family and celebrate Tassia’s recent publication. Congratulations Tassia! 🎉🎉 We also celebrate two marriages of lab members in two weeks! Congratulations Kevin and Wei🎉🎉🥳
  • July 12, 2024, Congratulations Tassia🎈🎉! Our paper with Dr. Carlos Cruchaga entitled “Genetic and multi-omic resources for Alzheimer disease and related dementia from the Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center” just published at Scientific Data !!!  
  • July 1, 2024, Dr. Harsha Motwani joined us as a postdoctoral research associate. Welcome Harsha!👏🎉
  • May 22, 2024, we received the Emory National Primate Research Center pilot grant with Dr. Adriana Galvan! The proposal entitled ” Investigating cell heterogeneity in the substantia nigra of young and old Rhesus macaques”.
  • May 21, 2024, Huge Congratulations to Gary!🎈🎉 Today we are celebrating Gary’s accomplishments and retirement at The Stormo Symposium on Computational Biology with our wonderful speakers and over 300 attendees. Thank you everyone for making this a wonderful and memorable event! See here for details.
  • May 10, 2024, Shinnosuke , Kevin and Danielle enjoyed Japanese Sushi together in Japan! What a wonderful reunion😋😍
  • May 9, 2024, we were awarded an R21 grant to investigate the therapeutic mechanism of DNA methyltransferases in Huntington’s disease. The proposal entitled “Therapeutic targeting of DNA methyltransferases in Huntington’s disease.” is a collaborative work with Dr. Hiroko Yano. Yeah🎉🎊🎈
  • April 29, 2024, George Murray decided to join us as a postdoctoral research associate. Welcome George!👏🎉
  • April 27, 2024, Ibrahim and Bijesh at the Purpose Annual meeting 2024.
  • April 23, 2024, George Murray visited us from The University of Maine. Thank you George for sharing your research with us!
  • April 19, 2024, Congratulations to Ibrahim and Bijesh for being selected as Travel Awardee for the PURPOSE Annual Meeting 2024! 🎉🎈🎊Thank you The Team at PURPOSE!
  • March 26, 2024, our collaborative paper with Dr. Bo Zhang entitled “Review and Evaluate the Bioinformatics Analysis Strategies of ATAC-seq and CUT&Tag Data” is accepted for publication at Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics!🎉🎈
  • March 22, 2024, Shinnosuke arrived at home safely !
  • March 12, 2024, going away party for Shinnosuke at Tucanos. We will miss you Shinnosuke !
  • February 13, 2024, we celebrated Kevin and Ibrahim’s papers at Frist Watch. Great food with great conversation!
  • March 9, 2024, Ibrahim’s perspective paper “New Insights into Astrocyte Diversity from the Lens of Transcriptional Regulation and Their Implications for Neurodegenerative Disease Treatments Neural Regeneration Research” is now published in Neural Regeneration Research. Congratulations Ibrahim! 🎉🎊
  • Jan. 23, 2024, finally the whole lab were able to get together and have some fun at Puttshack 🎈🎉 Welcome Bijesh and Ben!
  • January 8, 2024, Dr. Bijesh George join the lab as a Postdoc research associate. Welcome Bijesh!
  • Dec. 15, 2023, Ibrahim’s perspective paper “New Insights into Astrocyte Diversity from the Lens of Transcriptional Regulation and Their Implications for Neurodegenerative Disease Treatments Neural Regeneration Research” has now been accepted for publication in Neural Regeneration Research. Congratulations Ibrahim! 🎉🎊
  • Dec. 12, 2023, Look at this amazing little wonder house👏👍Lots of fun building our first gingerbread house 😀 A fantastic product from everyone’s hard work and creativity👍
  • Nov. 20th, 2023, we had a taste of Chinese food at Corner 17. Happy Thanksgiving!
  • Oct. 28th, 2023, Huma and her daughter, Wei, and Ibrahim together participated the Walk to End AD event at the Chesterfield Amphitheater. Ibrahim volunteered at the event. He started working from 5:00 in the morning in a very cold 40 degree weather. Kudos to Ibrahim! Kudo to the team!
  • Oct. 24, 2023, Benedict Ridore joins the lab. Benedict is an EnTER (Engaging Trainees in Early Research) program fellow. Congratulations and welcome Benedict!
  • Oct. 5 , 2023, Thanks to Drs. Bo Zhang and Erica Scheller for giving Tassia the opportunity to share our work at the Center of Regenerative Medicine (CRM @wustlcrm ) Bioinformatics Work in Progress (WIP) meeting!
  • Sept. 23, 2023, Kevin, Huma, and Ibrahim attended the inaugural St. Louis Translational Pain Research Forum organized by Drs. Daniela Salvemini, Amynah Pradhan, and our collaborator Dr. Robert Gereau. Kevin presented our work of single cell multiomic study on human DRG.
  • Sept. 20, 2023, I appreciate everyone’s effort everyday, not just in postdoc appreciation week!
  • Sept. 13, 2023, Tassia presented her work at IDDRC symposium. Great job Tassia!

  • Aug. 18, 2023, we are celebrating the successful completion of summer internship for Harry and Sophia! Both of them made significant contributions to our image analysis projects. Wish both of them a great school year ahead! Sultan Mediterranean Restaurant is a great place to be. Beautiful decorations and delicious food.😋
  • June 12, 2023, Sam Liu joins the lab for summer internship. Welcome, Sam!
  • June 9, 2023, Harry Wang joins the lab for summer internship. Welcome, Harry!
  • June 8, 2023, It’s official! 🎉🎊 I have been appointed as a dual Department of Genetics and Department of Neurology Assistant Professor on the Investigator Track. It’s great to be back to my home department. Big thanks to the Chairs of both departments, my mentors, and all the people who has helped me along the way!
  • May 25, 2023, packing for the move. We are moving into the space of Institute for Informatics!
  • May 5, 2023, finally we get to celebrate Ibrahim’s fellowship award from the Alzheimer’s Association. So much exercise and fun at Forest Park Boathouse!
  • April 18, 2023, it’s “show time”: lab members presented their work at the annual HOPE Center retreat.
  • March 31, 2023, exciting news about Ibrahim Saliu at “Researchers receive Alzheimer’s Association funding“. Ibrahim has received a $200,000 grant from the Alzheimer’s Association to study the role of astrocytes — a major non-neuronal support cell in the brain — in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
  • March 2, 2023, Read the news about “Transcriptomic changes in glia linked to specific neurodegenerative diseases“.
  • March 1, 2022, Dr. Huma Naz join the lab as a Postdoc research fellow. Welcome Huma!
  • February 23, 2023, so proud that Ibrahim has been awarded an Alzheimer’s Association International Research Fellowship. Congratulations Ibrahim!!👍👏🎉🎊
  • February 14, 2023, Our work is highlighted in Nature Aging briefings! I am very honored to receive expert opinions by Dr. Michal Schwartz at The Weizmann Institute!
  • February 9, 2023, Our paper about snRNA-seq comparison of astrocyte and microglia is online at Nature Aging today! Congratulations to everyone!!!
  • February 8, 2023, Research from the Zhao lab highlighted by THE SOURCE. WashU Medicine reaches new heights as it climbs to No. 3 in NIH research funding. Our R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health is highlighted in this report.
  • Jan. 10, 2023. Nature Aging will produce a Research Briefing on our paper!
  • Jan. 9, 2023. Our manuscript entitled “Human striatal glia differentially contribute to AD and PD-specific neurodegeneration” is accepted for publication in in Nature Aging!!! Huge thanks to all the collaborators Drs. Jinbin Xu, Randall J. Bateman, Tammie L.S. Benzinger, Jason J. Yi, Qingyun Li, Ting Wang, Joel S. Perlmutter, and John C. Morris! Thank you Huifangjie, Yiran, Kia, and William! Ben, Shinnosuke, Ibrahim, and Yiming all made significant contributions!
  • Jan. 6, 2023, today is Ben’s last day here. We get together to celebrate his time in the lab and send him home with all the best wishes. Ben will continue his MD/PhD training at the University of the Philippines.
  • Dec. 9, 2022, we finally were able to get together to welcome Wei and to celebrate the many good news. I got to try the gigantic “everything but…” at the the Soda Fountain 😋
  • Nov. 7, 2022, Dr. Wei Feng join the lab as a Postdoc research fellow. Welcome Wei!
  • Nov. 5, 2022, we are so excited to be part of the new INTERCEPT Pain Center here at WUSM! We will study human biology using single-cell multi-omcs and spatial proteomics to better understand and to develop new treatment for chronic pain. Details here.
  • Oct. 29, 2022, so glad to be part of the Knight ADRC Walk to End AD Team!
  • Sept. 1st, 2022, today we celebrate Louis’ successful completion of a summer intern with delicious sushi from Kampai Sushi Bar. Ibrahim had his first sushi taste!
  • August 23, 2022, a collaborative work from our lab with Valeria Cavalli’s lab “Analysis of neuronal injury transcriptional response identifies CTCF and YY1 as co-operating factors regulating axon regeneration” is out today at Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience. Using our own motif enrichment analysis tool MORA we were able to predict and validate multiple transcription factors that promote axon regeneration.
  • August 22, 2022, a collaborative work from our lab with Ying Maggie Chen’s lab “Blocking CHOP-dependent TXNIP shuttling to mitochondria attenuates albuminuria and mitigates kidney injury in nephrotic syndrome” is out today at PNAS. Congratulations Tassia!
  • July 7, 2022, we are really glad that we were able to get together for some fun at Olivette Lanes! Everyone got some strikes including first time bowler Ben!
  • June 30, 2022, Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences (ICTS) reported our success story here. We are very grateful for ICTS, GTAC@MGI, Knight ADRC, the Movement Disorders Center, NIA and NINDS for their generous support!!
  • June 6, 2022, Louis Li joined us as an undergraduate researcher. Welcome Louis!
  • April 22, 2022, it was really exciting that we finally were able to get together and meet everyone in person.

  • April. 13, 2022, I received Notice of Award for my R21 grant application. This is a collaborative work with Dr. Jinbin Xu and Dr. Stephen Oh ! See here for details.
  • March 28, 2022, Dr. Shinnosuke Yamada joins the lab. Welcome, Shinnosuke!
  • March 14, 2022, Dr. Ibrahim Olabayode Saliu joins the lab. Welcome, Ibrahim !
  • Jan. 1st, 2022, Ben Anthony Lopez joins the lab. What a great news to start a new year amid all the pandemic chaos. Welcome, Ben!
  • Oct. 4th, 2021, Kevin Boyer joins the lab. Welcome, Kevin!
  • Sept. 30, 2021, our collaboration with Dr. Ting Wang for the “Impact of Genomic Variation on Function (IGVF) Consortium” application just got funded! The IGVF will develop a framework for systematically understanding the effects of genomic variation on genome function and how these effects shape phenotypes. It’s a perfect opportunity for us to take advantage of our expertise in transcriptional regulation and the rich data generated by the consortium to tackle this important issue. See here for details.
  • Sept. 29, 2021, a collaborative work from our lab with Valeria Cavalli’s lab ” Profiling sensory neuron microenvironment after peripheral and central axon injury reveals key pathways for neural repair” has been published by eLife
  • Jul. 13, 2021, I received Notice of Award for my R01 grant application, the first R01 award to the Zhao lab.  Two grants in 2021! Here is the department news announcement.
  • June 26, 2020, A collaborative work from our lab with Valeria Cavalli’s lab “Genome-wide chromatin accessibility analyses provide a map for enhancing optic nerve regeneration” has been officially accepted by Scientific Reports! Congratulations Tassia!  
  • Jan. 4, 2021, I received Notice of Award for my R03 grant application. This is the first Zhao lab NIH grant. What a great way to start a new year! 
  • June 29, 2020, our Robust principal component analysis  for outlier detection paper is online at BMC Bioinformatics today!
  • June 26, 2020, A collaborative work from our lab with Ting Wang’s lab “Cellular Diversity of The Regenerating Caudal Fin” has been officially accepted by Science Advances! This is our first single cell genomics paper and the third paper in one month!  
  • June 16, 2020,  The first paper from the Zhao lab “Robust principal component analysis for accurate outlier sample detection in RNASeq data”  has been officially accepted by BMC Bioinformatics! This paper is about using robust principal component analysis to detect outlier samples from high dimensional data like RNA-Seq, ChIP-seq or metagenomic data. It will be very useful for people routinely working on high dimensional data analysis. 
  • June 5, 2020, A collaborative work from our lab with Azad Bonni’s lab “The chromatin remodeling enzyme Chd4 regulates genome architecture in the mouse brain” has been officially accepted by Nature Communication! 
  • April 16, 2020, Yizhe is invited to join the Division of Biology & Biomedical Sciences at Washington University. Congratulations to Yizhe!
  • April 20, 2020, Yaoyi is invited to join Baylor College of Medicine for her Ph.D. study. Congratulations to Yaoyi! 
  • Jan. 30, 2020, we went to Rasoi to celebrate the many good news. Both Yaoyi and Yizhe received offers for their first full time job at WU!!

Oct. 18, 2019, we went to Little Saigon to welcome Yiming and to celebrate our first grant.

  • Sept. 17, 2019, we win a $32k GTAC@MGI 2019 Symposium Pilot Award.
  • Sep. 16, 2019, Yiming Shi joins the lab. Welcome, Yiming!
  • Feb. 20, 2019, our first lab outing – lunch at the Kampai sushi bar.
  • Jan. 22, 2019, Tassia Mangetti Goncalves joins the lab as the first Postdoc. Welcome, Tassia!
  • Sep. 13, 2018, Yizhe Song joins the lab as the second student. Welcome, Yizhe!
  • Sep. 7, 2018, Yaoyi Dai joins the lab as the first-ever lab member. Welcome, Yaoyi!
  • Nov. 13, 2018, The second collaborative paper after joining the Department of Neuroscience is accepted for publication in the Proc Natl Acad Sci. “Epigenetic regulator UHRF1 inactivates REST and growth suppressor gene expression via DNA methylation to promote axon regeneration.“
  • Nov. 5, 2018, The first collaborative paper after joining the Department of Neuroscience is accepted for publication in the Journal of Neuroscience. “The Transcriptional Regulator SnoN Promotes the Proliferation of Cerebellar Granule Neuron Precursors in the Postnatal Mouse Brain.“
  • April 2nd, 2018, Zhao Lab established.