Dr. Zhou Songyang, Professor and Dean of School of Life Sciences, received his Bachelor Degree in Biochemistry from Sun Yat-sen University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Physiology from Tufts University in 1995, and received his postdoctoral training in both Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1998, Dr. Songyang joined the faculty in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Baylor College of Medicine, and was elected in 2008 an endowed professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Dr. Songyang was subsequently appointed Dean of School of Life Sciences at SYSU, and helped to build School of Life Sciences as a leading research institute by recruiting top scientists from abroad and establishing international collaborative laboratories.
Dr. Songyang's research aims to elucidate the molecular mechanisms that regulate human aging, cell survival, stem cell pluripotency, genome stability, and tumorigenesis through functional genomic approaches. His group has identified several protein complexes involved in telomere and stem cell regulation. He also developed arrayed screening strategies based on protein complementation to systematically investigate protein-protein interactions in live cells. Results from his studies have not only shed light on the molecular niche that is fundamental to telomere regulation and stem cell biology, but also provided valuable tools to investigate signaling pathways in mammalian cells. Dr. Songyang has received numerous awards, including Scholar Awards for American Cancer Society and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He has served as JBC editorial board member, book editor, and reviewer for major journals and grant panels. He has published more than 90 papers in leading scientific journals including Nature, Science, and Cell. His publications have been cited over 11,000 times, one of which was selected as one of the 30 most memorable papers in 30-year history of Cell.
