Education

Current Positions

Assistant Professor, School of Life Sciences, CUHK

Research Interests

• Chaperonin-assisted protein folding mechanisms;
• Allosteric conformational dynamics of chaperonins in maintaining proteostasis;
• Drug development targeting protein-folding pathways for cancer therapy

Representative Publications

1. Zhao, Y.*, Schmid, M.F., Chiu, W.. Mechanism of the sequential trajectory of allosteric ring closure in human chaperonin TRiC. Manuscript in revision., 2025.
2. Zhao, Y.*, Schmid, M.F., Chiu, W.*. Visualizing dynamic tubulin folding in chaperonin TRiC from nonnative nucleus to final native state. Nat Commun, 2025. 16, 7878.
3. Zhao, Y.*, Schmid, M.F., Chiu, W.*. Cost-benefit analysis of cryogenic electron tomography subtomogram averaging of chaperonin MmCpn at near atomic resolution. Structure, 2025;33(2):372-380.e2
4. Gestaut, D.†, Zhao, Y.†, Park, J., Ma, B., Leitner, A., Collier, M., Pintilie, G., Roh, S., Chiu, W., Frydman, J.. Structural visualization of the tubulin folding pathway directed by human chaperonin TRiC/CCT. Cell, 2022;185(25):4770-4787.e20.
5. Zhao, Y., Schmid, M.F., Frydman, J., Chiu, W.. CryoEM reveals the stochastic nature of individual ATP binding events in a group II chaperonin. Nat Commun, 2021;12, 4754.

*Co-correspondence or Correspondence; † Equal contribution

Awards

1. Stanford Dean’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at the School of Medicine, 2023                                                                      
2. The Raleigh and Clara Miller Scholarship, 2019
3. MSA Student Poster Award at Microscopy and Microanalysis Conference, 2019                       

Professional Activities

Reviewer, Nature Methods; Nature Communications