Professor Peijun Zhang, Supernumerary Fellow in Medicine and Professor of Structural Biology, is using state-of-the-art cryoEM methods to try to resolve the structure of native intact SARS-CoV-2 virus particles chest x-rays and CT, providing essential structural information that will help fighting COVID-19 pandemic.

Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of large protein complexes and assemblies, in particular those involved in HIV-1 pathogenesis and bacterial chemotaxis signalling, by developing and combining novel technologies for high-resolution cryoEM and cryoET.

Professor Zhang obtained her Ph.D. in Biophysics and Physiology from University Virginia, M.S. in Physics and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Nanjing University, China. In 2016, she joined the University of Oxford as a professor and as the founding director of eBIC (the UK National Electron Bio-imaging Centre) at the Diamond Light Source. She has received many awards, including the Carnegie Science Emerging Female Scientist Award (2014) and Wellcome Trust Investigator Award (2017).

Are you involved?
If you are involved in research or frontline work relating to COVID-19 that you would like to bring to the attention of the Univ community worldwide, please email communications@univ.ox.ac.uk.

Published: 7 May 2020

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