Extra Rudbeck seminar – Xiaowei Zhuang

Xiaowei Zhuang

Harvard University, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Xiaowei Zhuang is an investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the David B. Arnold Professor of Science at Harvard University. She pioneered the development of super-resolution imaging and genome-scale imaging methods. She invented STORM, a super-resolution imaging method that broke the diffraction limit and allowed light microscopy with nanometer-scale resolution, and discovered novel molecular structures in cells using STORM. She invented a genome-scale imaging method, MERFISH, which enabled spatially resolved single-cell transcriptomics, 3D genomics, epigenomics and functional genomics. Using MERFISH, she made discoveries in areas ranging from the cellular organization and functions in the complex tissues to the 3D genome organization and gene regulation in cells.

Zhuang received her Ph.D. degree from University of California at Berkeley and her postdoctoral training in the lab of Prof. Steven Chu at Stanford University. She received honorary doctorate degrees from the Stockholm University, the Delft University of Technology, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Zhuang is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and a foreign associate of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization. Her awards include the National Inventors Hall of Fame, the Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, the Heinrich Wieland Prize, the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics, the Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences, the Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science, the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, the National Academy of Sciences Award for Scientific Discovery, the Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Biophysics, the Max Delbruck Prize in Biological Physics, the MacArthur Fellowship, etc.

Ten selected publications in the areas of spatial genomics and functional genomics

1. K. H. Chen, A. N. Boettiger, J. R. Moffitt, S. Wang, X. Zhuang. Spatially resolved, highly multiplexed RNA profiling in single cells. Science 348, aaa6090 (2015).
2. S. Wang, J. –H. Su, B. J. Beliveau, B. Bintu, J. R. Moffitt, C. –t. Wu, X. Zhuang. Spatial organization of chromatin domains and compartments in single chromosomes. Science 353, 598-602 (2016).
3. J. R. Moffitt, D. Bambah-Mukku, S. W. Eichhorn, E. Vaughn, K. Shekhar, J. D. Perez, N. D. Rubinstein, J. Hao, A. Regev, C. Dulac, X. Zhuang. Molecular, spatial, and functional single-cell profiling of the hypothalamic preoptic region. Science 362, eaau5324 (2018).
4. J. -H. Su, P. Zheng, S. S. Kinrot, B. Bintu, X. Zhuang. Genome-scale imaging of the 3D organization and transcriptional activity of chromatin. Cell 182, 1641-1659 (2020).
5. M. Zhang, S. W. Eichhorn, B. Zingg, Z. Yao, K. Cotter, H. Zeng, H. Dong, X. Zhuang. Spatially resolved cell atlas of the mouse primary motor cortex by MERFISH. Nature 598, 137-143 (2021).
6. R. Fang, C. Xia, J. L. Close, M. Zhang, J. He, Z. Huang, A. R. Halpern, B. Long, J. A. Miller, E. S. Lein, X. Zhuang. Conservation and divergence of cortical cell organization in human and mouse revealed by MERFISH. Science 377, 56-62 (2022).
7. T. Lu, C. E. Ang, X. Zhuang. Spatially resolved epigenomic profiling of single cells in complex tissues. Cell 185, 4448-4464 (2022).
8. W. E. Allen, T. R. Blosser, Z. A. Sullivan, C. Dulac, X. Zhuang. Molecular and spatial signatures of mouse brain aging at single cell resolution. Cell 186, 194-208 (2023).
9. M. Zhang, X. Pan, W. Jung, A. Halpern, S. W. Eichhorn, Z. Lei, L. Cohen, K. A. Smith, B. Tasic, Z. Yao, H. Zeng, X. Zhuang. Molecularly defined and spatially resolved cell atlas of the whole mouse brain. Nature 624, 343-354 (2023).
10. R. A. Saunders, W. E. Allen, X. Pan, J. Sandhu, J. Lu, T. K. Lau, K. Smolyar, Z. A. Sullivan, C. Dulac, J. S. Weissman, X. Zhuang. A platform for multimodal in vivo pooled genetic screens reveals regulators of liver function. Cell (in press). bioRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.11.18.624217 (2024).