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Welcome to Gang CHEN Research Group                              Personal webpage: https://myweb.cuhk.edu.cn/chengang/

in the School of Life and Health Sciences (LHS), School of Medicine,

at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen)

 

Dr Gang CHEN has been interested in probing the molecular recognition interactions responsible for RNA structures, stabilities, dynamics, and functions since 2001. He has worked on a variety of RNA structures including non-Watson-Crick base pairs (such as isoG-isoC, G-A, A-A, G-G, U-U, U-C, G-U, and A-C pairs), base triples, and pseudoknots. The triplex structures present in RNA pseudoknots inspired the current work on targeting RNA by dsRNA-binding chemically modified peptide nucleic acids, which show selective recognition of dsRNAs over ssRNAs and dsDNAs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The chemical structures of major-groove dbPNA·RNA-RNA base triples. Unmodified PNAs can bind to both ssRNA and dsRNA. However, our dbPNAs with modified bases L, R, Q, and S show selective binding to dsRNA, with significantly weakened binding to ssRNA. RNA base pairs are shown in black. The numbers in brackets are the years in which our research group published the work.

Dr. Gang CHEN received his B.S. degree in Chemistry at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2001. He did his Ph.D. studies with Prof. Douglas TURNER (https://cen.acs.org/articles/88/i39/Doug-Turner-Named-Hammes-Lecturer.html ) in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Rochester. His Ph.D. work involved thermodynamic and NMR studies of RNA internal loops. A better understanding of the sequence dependence of thermodynamics for RNA structures will improve the accuracy of the RNA secondary structure prediction programs such as MFOLD and RNAstructure. He earned his Ph.D. in 2005. He was a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Ignacio TINOCO’s lab in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley from January 2006 to June 2009. His research in Tinoco lab was on single-molecule mechanical unfolding and folding of RNA pseudoknots by laser optical tweezers, which provided new insights into ribosomal reading-frame regulation by cis-acting mRNA structures. He was a Research Associate in Prof. David MILLAR's lab in the Department of Molecular Biology at The Scripps Research Institute working on HIV-1 Rev-RRE assembly using single-molecule fluorescence techniques. In July 2010, he joined the faculty in the Division of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. In 2020, he  joined the School of Life and Health Sciences (LHS) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-SZ).

 

Multiple positions (graduate students and postdoctoral fellows) are available in Dr. CHEN's group. Motivated students with high scientific ethics and strong research background are invited to join the multidisciplinary research group led by Dr. CHEN to probe and reprogram the structures, stabilities, dynamics, and biological functions of RNAs and RNA-protein complexes using various biological, physical, and chemical techniques. Annual salary for postdocs is about 360K RMB = 47K Euro = 71.5K SGD = 50.4K USD. PhD students typically get an annual salary of about 60K RMB. Interested undergraduate and graduate students are encouraged to contact Dr. CHEN by email (RNA-CHEN<at>outlook.com).

广东省博士博士后服务网

深圳市高层次专业人才认定

香港中文大学(深圳)大湾区生物医药创新研发中心

大学已培养了两届本科毕业生,四届硕士毕业生

75.73%的毕业生攻读世界名校的硕/博学位

PhD/MSc programs in LHS, CUHK-Shenzhen: Chinese   English

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Our old lab website:  http://sites.google.com/site/rnachen2/

Base triples 3.tif
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publication R-GC triple.png
publication s2U-AU triple.png
publication book chapter cover.jpg
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