Distinguished Professor, Director of Shenzhen University International Cancer Center

My lab mainly focuses on the molecular mechanisms underline epigenetic regulation in cancer development and therapy. Over the past decade, we have been trying to understand the roles of epigenetic regulators in the DNA damage response and repair, genome instability and autophagy, and other cancer-related cellular processes. Together with my colleagues and students, we have managed to accomplish some original findings and published >100 articles and reviews in high-profile journals such as Nature, Nat Cell Biol, Mol Cell, Science Adv., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, which have been cited >6000 times (H-index = 43). I am currently an Editor-in Chief for Genome instability and diseases (DIAD), Associate editor for Cancer Science.; and an academic editor for PLoS One, DNA Repair, Science China Life Science, ABBS, Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy. My research has been continuously funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST), and the local governments. I have also been funded by the National Outstanding Youth Fund project and I am now the Chief Scientist for the Innovative Team of the NSFC. I also serve as the Director of the Beijing Key Laboratory for“Post-translational modifications and Cellular Function”and the Guangdong Key Laboratory for "Genome Instability and Human Disease Prevention". I have held several concurrent positions, including the Vice President of the Chinese Cancer Society (Basic Science), the Vice President of the Chinese Society for Medical Biochemistry and the Vice President of the Chinese Society for Biochemistry, Division of Gene Expression, and am a member of the standing committee of the Chinese Society for Biochemistry.

Research interest

•Molecular mechanisms of epigenetic regulation in cancer development and therapy

•Mechanisms of DNA damage repair and autophagy

Research Projects (On-going):

NSFC (China) interactional collaboration project (81720108027)

Wei-Guo Zhu, PI

Mechanistic study and molecular network of the reciprocal regulation between histone deacetylase Sirtuin and p53

01/01/2018 to 12/31/2022, ￥2,300,000

National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFA0503900)

Wei-Guo Zhu, PI

Molecular mechanism of novel DNA damage responding protein machineries in regulating genome stability

07/01/2018 to 06/30/2022, ￥28,790,000

NSFC (China) key project (81530074)  

Wei-Guo Zhu, PI

Molecular mechanism of histone methyltransferase G9a in tumor cell lipid metabolism

01/01/2016 to 12/31/2020, ￥2,730,000

Shenzhen Basic Research Project (JCYJ20170818092450901)

Wei-Guo Zhu, PI  

Study on re-sensitization of radiotherapy-tolerant tumors

04/01/2018 to 03/31/2020, ￥3,000,000

Selected Peer-reviewed Publications:

1.Tang M, Li Z, Zhang C, Lu X, Tu B, Cao Z, Li Y, Chen Y, JInag L, Wang H, Wang L, Wang J, Liu B, Xu X, Wang H, Zhu WG*. SIRT7-mediated ATM deacetylation is essential for its deactivation and DNA damage repair. Science Advances, 2019, 5: eaav 1118, 27 March.

2. Yang Q, Zhu Q, Lu X, Du Y, Cao L, Shen C, Hou T, Li M, Li Z, Liu C, Wu D, Xu X, Wang L, Wang H, Zhao Y, Yang Y, Zhu WG*. (2017) G9a coordinates with the RPA complex to promote DNA damage repair and cell survival. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2017 Jul 25;114(30):E6054-E6063.

3. Wang Y, Zhang N, Zhang L, Li R, Fu W, Ma K, Li X, Wang L, Wang J, Zhang H, Gu W, Zhu WG*, Zhao Y*. (2016) Autophagy Regulates Chromatin Ubiquitination in DNA Damage Responsethrough Elimination of SQSTM1/p62. Mol Cell. 2016 Jul 7;63(1):34-48.

4. Wang D, Zhou J, Liu X, Lu D, Shen C, Du Y, Wei FZ, Song B, Lu X, Yu Y, Wang L, Zhao Y, Wang H, Yang Y, Akiyama Y, Zhang H, Zhu WG*. (2013). Methylation of SUV39H1 by SET7/9 results in heterochromatin relaxation and genome instability. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 110(14): 5516-21.

5. Zhao Y, Yang J, Liao W, Liu X, Zhang H, Wang S, Wang D, Feng J, Yu L, Zhu WG*. (2010) Cytosolic FoxO1 is essential for the induction of autophagy and tumour suppressor activity. Nat Cell Biol. 2010 Jul;12(7):665-75.