"A method is more important than a discovery, since the right method will lead to new and even more important discoveries." - Lev Landau
Biography
Dr. Yongdeng Zhang received his bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering from Central South University in 2008 and Ph.D. degree in Biophysics from Huazhong University of Science & Technology with joint training at the Institute of Biophysics in 2013. He worked as a Research Assistant for one year at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He then joined Yale University School of Medicine as a Postdoctoral Associate in 2014. He joined the School of Life Sciences at Westlake University as a Principal Investigator in 2020.
Research
Dr. Yongdeng Zhang has been focusing on the development and biological application of single-molecule super-resolution microscopy techniques (such as PALM/STORM). He developed a novel multi-color imaging approach using fluorescence signal that is normally rejected, termed salvaged fluorescence, and integrated it with 4Pi-SMS to build the first super-resolution microscope capable of simultaneous three-color imaging of whole mammalian cells at ~20 nm isotropic 3D resolution with minimal cross-talk and negligible chromatic aberrations.
The lab will be dedicated to developing next-generation super-resolution microscopy techniques and establishing molecular-level imaging approaches (including single-molecule imaging and live-cell imaging) to facilitate in situ biological investigations and quantitative analysis at the nanoscale. We aim to create a tool for biologists that combines the strength of molecular specificity in the context of interaction partners and cellular landmarks with a level of detail that traditionally had been the realm of electron microscopy. Furthermore, we will continue making these techniques more accessible to non-experts, enabling collaborators of all experience levels to employ these innovations to address an array of their biological questions.
Representative Publications
1. Zhang, Y.*, Schroeder, L.K.*, Lessard, M.D., Kidd, P., Chung, J., Song, Y., Benedetti, L., Li, Y., Ries, J., Grimm, J.B., Lavis, L.D., De Camilli, P., Rothman, J.E., Baddeley, D. & Bewersdorf, J. Nanoscale subcellular architecture revealed by multicolor three-dimensional salvaged fluorescence imaging. Nat. Methods 17, 225-231 (2020). *Equal contribution
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-019-0676-4
2. Zhang, Y.*, Lara-Tejero, M.*, Bewersdorf, J. & Galan, J.E. Visualization and characterization of individual type III protein secretion machines in live bacteria. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 114, 6098-6103 (2017). *Equal contribution
https://www.pnas.org/content/114/23/6098
3. Takakura, H.*, Zhang, Y.*, Erdmann, R.S.*, Thompson, A.D.*, Lin, Y., McNellis, B., Rivera-Molina, F., Uno, S.N., Kamiya, M., Urano, Y., Rothman, J.E., Bewersdorf, J., Schepartz, A. & Toomre, D. Long time-lapse nanoscopy with spontaneously blinking membrane probes. Nat. Biotechnol. 35, 773-780 (2017). *Equal contribution
https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3876
4. Yuan, T., Lu, J., Zhang, J., Zhang, Y.† & Chen, L†. Spatiotemporal detection and analysis of exocytosis reveal fusion "hotspots" organized by the cytoskeleton in endocrine cells. Biophys. J. 108, 251-260 (2015). †Corresponding author
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000634951404675X?via%3Dihub
5. Yuan, T.*, Liu, L.*, Zhang, Y.*, Wei, L.*, Zhao, S., Zheng, X., Huang, X., Boulanger, J., Gueudry, C., Lu, J., Xie, L., Du, W., Zong, W., Yang, L., Salamero, J., Liu, Y. & Chen, L. Diacylglycerol Guides the Hopping of Clathrin-Coated Pits along Microtubules for Exo-Endocytosis Coupling. Dev. Cell 35, 120-130 (2015). *Equal contribution
https://www.cell.com/developmental-cell/fulltext/S1534-5807(15)00584-5
6. Zhang, Y.*, Gu, L.*, Chang, H.*, Ji, W.*, Chen, Y., Zhang, M., Yang, L., Liu, B., Chen, L. & Xu, T. Ultrafast, accurate, and robust localization of anisotropic dipoles. Protein Cell 4, 598-606 (2013). *Equal contribution
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13238-013-3904-1
7. Zhang, M.*, Chang, H.*, Zhang, Y.*, Yu, J., Wu, L., Ji, W., Chen, J., Liu, B., Lu, J., Liu, Y., Zhang, J., Xu, P. & Xu, T. Rational design of true monomeric and bright photoactivatable fluorescent proteins. Nat. Methods 9, 727-729 (2012). *Equal contribution
https://www.nature.com/articles/nmeth.2021
The full list of publications can be found at:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XiG1gVwAAAAJ&hl=en
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