Jin Zhang Lab

We also demonstrate a more selective AKAR variant, able to distinguish nuclear PKA signaling that is otherwise obscured by other kinase signals.
This work also relied on collaboration with @globus1.bsky.social

Read it here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵 5/5

In the second paper, led by Jin-Fan Zhang and @weilin1113.bsky.social , we focus on the development of AKAR6, an improved PKA biosensor with improved sensitivity, enabling diverse readouts including flow cytometry, FLIM-FRET and 2-photon imaging in brain slices. 🧵 4/5

With high sensitivity and flexible spectral tuning, these sensors enable robust multiplexed and lifetime-based imaging across diverse signaling pathways. This platform makes it possible to visualize subtle spatiotemporal signaling dynamics in living cells and physiologically relevant tissues. 🧵3/5

Cartoon schematic of YHt-AKAR and RHt-AKAR

Led by grad student Xinchang He and in collaboration with @michellefrei17.bsky.social and @yaochen20.bsky.social we developed a new series of chemigenetic FRET-based biosensors by pairing fluorescent protein donors with HaloTag–far-red dyes, providing enhanced dynamic range over FP-based designs.

🚨🚨Double preprint alert! 🚨🚨
Two papers went up on Biorxiv this week!
The first presents new chemigenetic FRET-based biosensors: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
And the second presents an improved version of our C-Y FRET PKA reporters, AKAR6 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Thread 🧵 1/5

Happy birthday to graduate student Yingqi! Another year, another #dragonknife and cake! 🎂

Congratulations to graduate student Rosie Zhou and postdoc Nick Bergkamp on winning poster prizes at last month’s Roger Tsien Cell Signaling Symposium! It was a great day with lots of amazing science, and nice to have our trainees’ work highlighted.

Just before the holidays we celebrated project scientist Ben Li, who is moving on to a new position at Zymo Research. Congratulations and good luck in your future endeavors, Ben!

At our annual holiday party we wished a happy birthday to graduate student Evan Wen! Happy birthday and happy holidays, Evan! #dragonknife

A photo of Ryan on the left, and Jin on the right, outside with trees and a blue sky.

We recently said farewell to Ryan Weeks, who defended his thesis a few months ago and is now moving on from the lab to do a postdoc in Mia Myong-Hee Sung’s lab at the NIH (irp.nih.gov/pi/myong-hee...)! We'll miss him but we're proud to see him take his next scientific steps. Congrats, Dr. Weeks!

Photo of Evan outside the building our lab is housed in.

Congratulations to graduate student Evan Wen on receiving and NIH F31 Fellowship Award for his project “Spatial diversity of GPCR-mediated ERK signaling and its role in cardiovascular disease”!

Visualization of PKA regulatory subunit RIa (green) forming phase-separated condensates with the catalytic subunit (red) in MIN6 beta cells, revealing dynamic protein organization within the cytoplasm. Cell nuclei are in blue.

Check out this recent paper from the lab, which sheds light on the physiological role of RIa phase separation, including its impact on insulin secretion! journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
This work was led by project scientist Skott and former grad student Julia, part of our phase separation team!

Light-gated integrator for highlighting kinase activity in living cells - Nature Communications Real-time biosensors have been developed for visualizing kinase activity dynamics, but they are confronted with many challenges. Here, the authors develop a light-gated KINACT integrator for post hoc ...

And in case you haven’t seen it, here’s KINACT, the light-gated kinase integrator Wei pioneered in the lab! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Last week we celebrated Wei, @weilin1113.bsky.social, who has left the Zhang lab to start his independent career at Jiangnan University, focused on glycobiology. Wei has led numerous projects including the kinase integrator, KINACT. We’re proud of his work here and excited to see his next steps!

Congratulations to Leah Bae, who successfully defended her master’s thesis last week! We’re very proud of her achievements in the lab and are excited for her next steps!

Congratulations to Dr Ayse Sahan! Ayse defended her thesis this summer, and just finished up in the lab to move to her next adventure: a postdoc at UChicago! We miss Ayse already, but we’re very proud of what she’s accomplished here and excited to see her future work! #DragonKnife #PhDone

Last week we said “au revoir” to Prof. Xavier Nicol, who joined us for his sabbatical over the last year. It’s been great to have him for discussions and ideas, and we’re excited to keep working with him on collaborations!

Emily posing with Jin

Emily posing with the Dragon Knife about to cut a celebratory cake

Congratulations to Dr Emily Pool, who defended her thesis last week! She’s been an incredible asset to the lab, from her precision, to her mentorship, to the subject of her work, phase separation of PKA regulatory subunits. We’re so excited to see what she does next! Congrats, Dr. Pool!

3D rendering of a Ankyrin R adaptor protein

We are counting down the days to our Protein Science Symposium on June 10-12! Thrilled to be hosting our colleagues from WCM @weillcornell.bsky.social as well as keynote speakers Dr. Christopher Lima @christopherdlima.bsky.social and Dr. ‪Jin Zhang @jinzhanglab.bsky.social

Three cakes! 🎂🎂🎂 The Zhang lab is full of May birthdays! Happy birthday to grad students Rosie and Max, and to postdoc Su-Hyun. (And belated birthdays to postdocs Nick and Ben, not part of today’s triple cake event, but celebrated nonetheless)
#dragonknife

Self-assembling Molecules Take the Spotlight at Research Expo 2025 UC San Diego materials science and engineering Ph.D. student Liya Bi won the grand prize at the 43rd annual Jacobs School of Engineering Research Expo for his work studying how molecules organize them...

Read a recap of the event and all the poster prize winners here!

today.ucsd.edu/story/self-a...

Congratulations to graduate student Rosie Zhou, who won the Shu and KC Chien Best Poster in Bioengineering award at the annual Jacobs School of Engineering Research Expo for her poster “Visualizing Protein Communication in Human Cells to Improve Cancer Treatment”
@jacobsschool.bsky.social

Graduate Student Yingqi Zhu won the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program predoctoral research award. This grant will support her work on "Spatiotemporal cGAMP Signaling in Tobacco-Induced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Metastasis."

Postdoc Dr. Nick Bergkamp received the Rubicon Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Dutch Research Council, and the Van Zweiten PHD Thesis Award. The Rubicon Fellowship will support his project, "Location, location, location - Spatial Organization of AT1R-mediated ERK Signaling in the Diseased Heart."

Headshots of Dr. Nick Bergkamp and Yingqi Zhu, along with the titles of their awards and their projects. For Nick, the Rubicon Postdoctoral Fellowship- Dutch Research Council and Van Zwieten PHD Thesis Award, for the project "Location, location, location - Spatial organization of AT1R-Galphaq-mediated ERK signaling in the diseased heart." For Yingqi, The 2025 TRDRP Predoctoral Award for her project, Spatiotemporal cGAMP signaling in Tobacco-induced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Metastasis

Congratulations to two members of the lab on receiving fellowships and prizes! We're very proud of them, and these awards will support their work on signaling in heart disease and lung cancer, respectively.
Details in the thread for each of their projects. 🧵

As Michelle mentioned, this paper was an incredible team effort, especially from two current graduate students, Samantha Sanchez and Xinchang He, who finished up many aspects of the project within the lab!

So happy to see Michelle’s excellent paper from her postdoc with us now out! Her expertise allowed us to develop a new class of KARs with enhanced dynamic range and shifted to the far-red.

Everyone should keep an eye on her independent career, more incredible work is on the way!

Your yearly reminder to acknowledge the core facilities you use and their staff scientists in your papers. These scientists are a crucial part of the scientific ecosystem and to continue to exist they need tangible credit for their work. Plus their associated expertise adds credibility to your work.

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Just dropped in @naturecomms.bsky.social

We’ve engineered the most photostable yellow fluorescent proteins (YFPs) to date—mGold2s and mGold2t—with up to 25× greater photostability than mVenus and mCitrine, without compromising brightness.

👇
🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congratulations to graduate student Ayse Sahan and former student Shawn Mingyuan Chen on the publication of their lipid biosensors in PNAS! With these sensors, we’re able to track PI(3,4)P2 and PIP3 signaling in the cell, and show the lysosome is a PIP3 signaling site. www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....