Post-doctoral Fellow
Research
During my Ph.D. training, I studied autophagy using C. elegans as a model system in Dr. Hong Zhang's lab at National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China. I identified a number of previous uncharacterized genes involved in autophagy and defined the function of these gene products at discrete steps of a signaling pathway. I received my Ph.D. degree in 2010.
Now I am very interested in the molecular mechanisms of longevity. One of the newly identified pathway regulate longevity is a cell non-autonomous signal induced by electron transfer chain perturbation. The results indicate that a signal is sent from the disturbed mitochondria to distal cells to modulate their mitochondrial function resulting in lifespan extension. We have termed this signal a "mitokine." I will use the power of C. elegans genetics to identify genes functioning in production, transduction, and regulation of the mitokine signal.