Members

Yongjin Zhou   Professor and Principal Investigator（CV）

Yongjin Zhou, Ph.D., Chair Professor. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS in 2012, M.E. in Biochemical Engineering at Tianjin University in 2008 and a B.E in Food Science and Technology at Jiangnan University in 2006. From 2012-2016, he worked as a Postdoc fellow at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. In January of 2017, he was recruited as the Principle Investigator to establish Microbial Synthetic Biology Laboratory at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS. His research areas include: Synthetic microbiology, yeast genetics and metabolic engineering. He co-authored more than 100 peer reviewed papers on prestigious journals such as Cell, Nature Energy, Nature Metabolism, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Communications, JACS, PNAS with >7000 citations and hold 8 patents. He was honored several awards include: The first prize of Chinese Pharmaceutical Association (2015), “Lun Shiyi’Distinguished Young Scientists (2018), The Best Potential Youth Scholar (2019) , Excellent Young Scholars from NSFC (2019), Agilent “ACT-UR” Award (2023), and Outstanding Young Scholars from NSFC (2014). He also serves as Editor-in-Chief for Biotechnology Journal; Associate Editor for Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology，BioDesign Research; And Editorial Board Member of FEMS Yeast Research, Bioresources and Bioprocessing etc.

Featured Publications

1. Chen R.B., Chen X., Chen Y., Yang J., Chen W.*, Zhou Y. J.*, Zhang L.*, De novo biosynthesis of plant lignans by synthetic yeast consortia. Nat. Chem. Biol., 2025, Accepted.

2. Yang S., Chen R.B., Cao X., Wang G.D., Zhou Y.J.*, De novo biosynthesis of the hops bioactive flavonoid xanthohumol in yeast, Nat. Commun., 2024, 15, 253.

3. Gao J.Q.#, Yu W.#, Li Y.X., Jin M.J., Yao L., Zhou Y.J.*, Engineering co-utilization of glucose and xylose for chemical overproduction from lignocellulose, Nat. Chem. Biol., 2023, 19, 1524-1531. (Cover)

4. Zhai X.X., Gao J.Q., Li Y.X., Grininger M., Zhou Y.J.*,  Peroxisomal metabolic coupling improves fatty alcohol production from sole methanol in yeast, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 2023, 120(12), e2220816120.

5. Gao J.Q., Li Y.X., Yu W., Zhou Y.J.*, Rescuing yeast from cell death enables overproduction of fatty acids from sole methanol, Nat. Metab., 2022, 4, 932-943.

6. Chen R.B., Gao J.Q., Yu W., Chen X.H., Zhai X.X., Chen Y., Zhang L.*, Zhou Y.J.*, Engineering cofactor supply and recycling to drive phenolic acid biosynthesis in yeast, Nat. Chem. Biol., 2022, 18, 520-529.

7. Cai P., Wu X.Y., Deng J., Gao L.H., Shen Y.W., Yao L., Zhou Y.J.*, Methanol biotransformation toward high-level production of fatty acid derivatives by engineering the industrial yeast Pichia pastoris, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 2022, 119(29), e2201711119.

8. Cai P.#, Duan X.P.#, Wu X.Y., Gao L.H., Ye M., Zhou Y.J.*, Recombination machinery engineering facilitates metabolic engineering of the industrial yeast Pichia Pastoris, Nucleic Acids Res., 2021, 49(13), 7791-7805.

9. Yu T.#, Zhou Y.J.#, Huang M.T., Liu Q.L., Pereira R., David F., Nielsen J.*, Reprogramming yeast metabolism from alcoholic fermentation to lipogenesis, Cell, 2018, 174(6), 1549-1558.

10.  Zhou Y.J., Kerkhoven E., Nielsen J.*, Barriers and opportunities in bio-based production of hydrocarbons, Nat. Energy, 2018, 3, 925-935.