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Chuan He
Chinese-American chemical biologist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Chuan He (Chinese: 何川) is a Chinese-American chemical biologist. He currently serves as the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.[1] He is best known for his work in discovering and deciphering reversible RNA methylation in post-transcriptional gene expression regulation.[2] He was awarded the 2023 Wolf Prize in Chemistry for his work in discovering and deciphering reversible RNA methylation in post-transcriptional gene expression regulation in addition to his contributions to the invention of TAB-seq, a biochemical method that can map 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) at base-resolution genome-wide, as well as hmC-Seal, a method that covalently labels 5hmC for its detection and profiling.[2]
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Education
He graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry. After undergoing his Ph.D. training with Stephen J. Lippard at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he worked under Gregory L. Verdine as a Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University. He subsequently became a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago in 2002.[3]
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Research
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In 2010, He proposed that RNA modifications could be reversible and may have regulatory roles.[2] He and colleagues subsequently discovered the first RNA demethylase that oxidatively reverses N6-methyladenosine (m6A) methylation in mammalian messenger RNA (mRNA) in 2011.[4] The existence of m6A in mRNA was discovered in 1974 in both eukaryotic and viral mRNAs; however, the biological significance and functional role were not known before He’s work. This methylation is the most abundant internal modification in mammalian mRNA. In 2012, two independent studies reported transcriptome-wide mapping of m6A in mammalian cells and tissues,[5][6] revealing a unique distribution pattern. He and co-workers identified and characterized the direct reader proteins for m6A, which impact the stability and the translation efficiency of m6A-modified mRNA, elucidating functional roles of mRNA methylation.[7][8] His group also purified the methyltransferase complex that mediates this methylation.[9]
The He laboratory also studies DNA methylation. He invented TAB-seq, a method that can map 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) at base-resolution genome-wide, as well as hmC-Seal, a method that covalently labels 5hmC for its detection and profiling.[10][11] Together with two other research groups, He and co-workers have revealed the DNA N6-methyldeoxyadenosine as a new methylation mark that could affect gene expression in eukaryotes.[12][13][14]
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Honors and awards
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