Zhao Yun

Biography

ZHAO Yun is a Professor Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China. Research Areas: fruit fly; cell differentiation and proliferation; Hedgehog (Hh); Smoothened (Smo); Cubitus interruptus (Ci); Fused (Fu).

Research Interest

How is cell growth controlled? How is cell fate determined? And, how does pattern form during animal development? These basic scientific questions are very critical in developmental biology. Cell-cell communication is a very important and fundamental mechanism for animal development. In many cases, the inductive signals, such as Hedgehog (Hh) and Wingless (Wnt), contribute to the cell-cell communication. Misregulation of cell signaling may cause diseases including cancers. Hh signaling pathway has been linked to several types of cancers including basal cell carcinomas. Induction signals are often highly conserved among organisms, such as between human being and Drosophila. Our long-term goal is to understand the mechanism of how cell growth and patterning are regulated. We will apply genetic, molecular and biochemical approaches to track new components in the Hh and related signaling pathways.