Mini profile with Professor Xiaodong Zhang

Professor Zhang (Life Sciences), Director of the Centre for Structural Biology (CSB), on receiving a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award.

How did you feel when you heard you had won the award?

It felt very surreal. The award gives me a lot of freedom to explore things that I probably couldn’t have done before and provides financial security for my group for the next five years.

What is your main field of research?

I study the repair process of DNA which has been damaged by toxic chemicals, such as smoke or drugs.

How is the funding going to benefit the CSB?

In fact, this award is personal. However, what I am doing is part of the Centre’s mission as well. The CSB has been awarded the Wellcome Trust multi-user equipment grant, which allows us to update our major facilities. As the director, my goals are to achieve even higher quality of research in structural biology and to promote collaboration between scientists.

What will you use this award to investigate?

One thing I want to look at is the detection of DNA damage using cell biology and biochemical techniques. Such damage sends signals that trigger a cascade of cellular events that eventually lead to action by the cell.

 What are your hopes for your research in the future?

 I want to be the major contributor in dissecting the DNA pathway at the atomic level. If we understand that, in principle it could help us understand cancer development and devise novel treatmentsfor patients.

–Kelvin Tang, work experience in Communications and Development