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Qin PENG: Seeing is Believing - Let FRET Technology Illuminate the Path to Discover 4D Nucleome

2021.04.12

The continuing story between Dr. Qin Peng and scientific research germinated from her belief and persistence for exploring the truth of life sciences. All these years, Dr. Peng never forgets about her childhood curiosity towards the unknown sciences, which kept motivating her to discover the world under the microscope - one that is utterly small, but utterly magnificent.

Dr. Peng, whose research aims at developing epigenetic FRET biosensors to address fundamental biological/physiological questions, told us that she hopes her research can offer new approaches and epigenetic targets for diagnosis and treatment for major diseases. “The primary duty of scientists is to use their scientific expertise to fuel the development of the country and benefit social well-being”, said Dr. Peng.  


Qin PENG, Junior Principal Investigator

Institute of Systems and Physical Biology


Research interests of Dr. PENG's group:

1. Nuclear mechanics regulated epigenetics; 

2. Development of 4D imaging platform of epigenetics; 

3. Regulation of nuclear mechanics in chromatin/epigenetics in transdifferentiation.


“Know what should be achieved to make ambition firm; firm ambition confers inner tranquility; inner tranquility makes balanced mind; balanced mind allows careful thinking; careful thinking helps to achieve the ambition” ( 知止而后有定,定而后能静,静而后能安,安而后能虑,虑而后能得 ). This Chinese saying has served as a principle for Dr. Peng to follow along the time. In 2006, Dr. Peng was admitted to the Chongqing University Biomedical Engineering Program, whose students later became the first and only cohort for the eight-year BS-PhD program. At that time, Dr. Peng was very determined to make her path towards the doctoral degree in the field of life sciences. As she put it, that’s her goal as well as original aspiration.

As a university junior, Dr. Qin Peng joined Prof. Yuanliang Wang’s group. “Self-consciousness, self-examination, self-enlightenment, self-reliance, self-competence and self-improvement”, these words from Prof. Wang influenced her greatly in her academic life. Despite lots of academic challenges, Dr. Peng developed a novel mechanical loading model that can present the different distribution of the strain of osteoblasts in vitro, and based on this, demonstrating that mechano-growth factor (MGF) and osteoblast proliferation have a high correlation with the levels of strains. This has won Dr. Peng the Excellent Graduation Project of Chongqing University.

Dr. Qin Peng did not expect that she would embark on an overseas academic journey until she was selected to the China Scholarship Council Joint PhD Program. In the year of 2012, she joined Prof. Yingxiao Wang’s lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) [* The group moved to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 2013] and conducted doctoral research in biomechanics and mechanobiology by utilizing advanced imaging technologies. In her doctoral thesis, Dr. Peng developed and characterized biosensors based on Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) and for the first time to visualize histone H3 Lys-9 trimethylation (H3K9me3) and histone H3 Ser10 phosphorylation (H3S10p) simultaneously in the same living cell. Also, this research constructed a mathematical model that reveal the  regulation mechanism underlying H3S10p–H3K9me3 coupling during mitosis, with the two sets of enzymes (kinase/phosphatase and methyltransferase/demethylase) sufficient to provide the kinetic analysis. The results provided insights on how histone modifications and chromatin structures are coordinated to regulate mitosis. Research of Dr. Peng had also developed a directed evolution based high-throughput screening platform using a yeast display library to screen and identify monobodies (e.g. H3K4me3, H3K79me2, H3K9ac) with high specificity and affinity to methylated or acetylated histones. The method can be employed to systematically design varieties of new FRET biosensors capable of monitoring important molecular dynamics at the surface and other subcellular regions of living cells.

Afterwards, in 2015 and 2017, Dr. Peng continued her academic career as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Shu Chien and Prof. Yingxiao Wang at UCSD.  She was promoted as an Assistant Scientist since 2017. During that period of time, Dr. Peng mainly focused on genomic loci labeling and epigenetic manipulation in single live cells based on phase separation, which can lead to deeper understanding of the role of epigenetic modifications in genomic regulation in response to physical and chemical environmental cues.

Eight years of overseas research experience became valuable lessons for Dr. Qin Peng. Prof. Wang, who possessed scientific breadth and great attitudes towards academic research, had deeply influenced her over the years. The Rule of 7C, which Prof. Chien always taught, illuminated Dr. Peng of how she should treat her goals and scientific practices with Compassion, Commitment, Comprehension, Communication, Creativity, Cooperation and Consummation.

Qin Peng came back to China and became a junior PI at SZBL in September 2020 . The main goal of her lab is to utilize FRET biosensors to study the dynamic coordination between histone modifications in regulating chromatin structures and gene expression in single living cells. An increase of research data has indicated that the abnormal gene expressions, which can contribute to cell proliferation, cell fate transition and etc., is a common and fundamental cue in the development of major diseases. The gene expression is mainly regulated by chromatin structure change and the epigenetic modifications regulation at the promoter region. For years, Dr. Peng has been integrating different cutting-edge technologies, including cellular engineering, live cell imaging, synthesis biology and biomechanics technology to address epigenetic modification questions. She has developed novel FRET imaging and screening methods for 4D imaging of epigenetics that greatly improved in imaging accuracy.

In SZBL, Dr. Peng‘s goal is to develop live cell imaging tools for epigenetic modifications that will lead to the further understanding of the mechanobiology environmental cues and pathology underlying major diseases, and to collaborate with the PIs in SZBL multi-disciplinary community to address life sciences issues.

“At SZBL, I am confident that I can go further in this scientific journey with the guidance from a group of prestigious scientific predecessors and multiple supports from the Shenzhen Bay laboratory. I will move forward with our research strategies highlighting both independent discovery and cross-disciplinary collaboration, and serve our mission to promote global health”.  


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Highlight

Dr. Qin Peng has published 23 papers including PNAS, CELL CHEM, SCI ADV, CURR OPIN SOLID ST M, J MOL BIOL, and so on. Dr. Peng has invited to present her work on BMES, 4DN, ICBME conferences and shared her biosensors with many other laboratories all over the world, e.g. Harvard medical school, Cornell University, UCLA, UCI, etc. Based on these work, Dr. Peng became the main contributor and project leader of four major NIH grants that she has received in the previous lab (R33CA204704A (Multiplex FRET Imaging of Kinase-Epigenome Interregulations in Live Cancer Cells), R01 GM125379-01 (Locus-specific Imaging of Dynamic Histone Methylations during Reprogramming), 5R01HL121365-06 (Role of Spatiotemporal Epigenetic Dynamics in Regulating Endothelial Gene Expressions under Flows), 1R01GM126016-01 (Remote-Control Mechano-Genetics and Epigenetics for Live Cell Manipulation)). Dr. Peng has also served as a reviewer to various journals as well as providing reviewing feedback to grant applications to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institute of Health (NIH). 

Explore more about Dr. PENG Qin and her research: 

http://pengqin.szbl.ac.cn/