Na Zhang
Professor
School of Life Sciences
University of Science and Technology of China
China
Biography
Na Zhang received his B.S. degree in chemistry from Chemistry Department of Nankai University in 1989, his M.S. degree in organic synthesis from Chemistry Department of Brigham Young University in 1999, and his Ph.D. degree in biochemistry & structural biology from Cornell University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in 2005. Subsequently he pursued a two-year postdoc as a research fellow at BCMP Department, Harvard Medical School and then a four-year HHMI postdoc as a research associate at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Following his postdoctoral work, in February 2012, Na joined High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Hefei, as an associate professor and was promoted to a full professor a year later. During his Ph.D. study and postdoctoral work, Na has been applying NMR to identify the interactions between carcinogenic small molecules binding with DNA/RNA; to solve 3D structures of DNA-drug complex and the higher order DNA architectures of G-quadruplex formed by guanine-rich sequences, including the fragment of human telomeric DNA repeats; and to characterize the self-chemical replication of nucleic acid systems which function as a key component of a primitive cell in origin of life. Currently in Na Zhang's group, nucleic acid structural biology is the main scheme. In particular, the solution NMR will be used as a primary tool to understand the structure, dynamics and function of biologically significant RNA and DNA, as well as their corresponding complexes interacted with protein or small molecule ligand.
Research Interest
Nucleic acid structural biology
Publications
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Zhang S, Zhang N, Blain JC, Szostak JW. Synthesis of N3'-P5'-linked Phosphoramidate DNA by Nonenzymatic Template-Directed Primer Extension. J Am Chem Soc. (2013), 135, p 924-932.
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Zhang N, Zhang SL, Szostak JW. Activated ribonucleotides undergo a sugar pucker switch upon binding to a single-stranded RNA template. J Am Chem Soc. (2012) 134, p3691-3694.
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Zhang N, Phan A, Patel D. (3 + 1) assembly of three human telomeric DNA repeats into an asymmetrical dimeric G-quadruplex. J Am Chem Soc. (2005) 127, p17277-17285.
