My main research is in neurodegeneration and
I am particularly interested in Alzheimer's disease, sleep and mitochondria.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common age-related neurodegenerative disorder.
Familial forms of Alzheimer's disease associated with the accumulation of a
toxic form of amyloid-β peptides are linked to mitochondrial impairment.
My research focuses on potential therapeutic targets for Alzheimer's disease
using cell and fly models in combination with human genetic, biochemical,
behavioural and brain imaging data. I recently used experimental results in
flies to human medical records and showed that increasing the bioavailability
of the coenzyme nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide to promote mitochondrial
health could reduce pathologies related Alzheimer's disease
(published in Cell Death & Disease, Yu et al., 2021)
.
I am now pursuing further research on the toxic effect of amyloid-β and how to reduce its toxicity.
I am also involved in a few collaborative works. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic,
I completed research projects on how air pollution and neurodegenerative diseases
could affect COVID-19 infection and death.
I am also involved in a project on using machine learning to investigate
the off-target effect of drugs on mitochondria.
UK Biobank and functional genomics
The UK Biobank is a large cohort of 500 000 participants.
I've published several work on the analysis of genetic, brain imaging,
behavioural and medications data, using this resource. Please visit this repository for more information.
Drosophila research
I have been working with Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism for Alzheimer's disease.
I am particular interested in measuring the function of their mitochondria as well as their sleep.
I am familiar with all techniques listed
here.
Cell cuture
I have been using differentiated neuroblastoma cells (SH-SY5Y) and
rat neuroprecursor cells to model amyloid-β toxicity, and mitochondrial dysfunction.
I'm also learning about organoids and iPSC.
Molecular modelling and dynamics
I have been developing several machine learning models to predict compounds
binding to proteins, as well as using moecular docking and dyanmics to model
the atomic interactions. One of the papers that I performed a molecular docking analysis
is here
Please visit my Google Scholar page for the full list of my publications.
We analysed the metabolomic changes in flies overexpressing Aβ and showed a decrease of metabolites associated with nicotinate and nicotinamide metabolism, which is critical for mitochondrial function in neurons. We used combined results in flies and in humans to show that increasing the bioavailability of NAD+ protects against Aβ toxicity.
We explored potential links between fuel-related air pollutants and SARS-CoV-2 mortality in England. Using regional-level data, we found positive relationships between nitrogen oxides and COVID-19 mortality and infectivity. Using the UK Biobank data, we further showed that PM2.5 was a major contributor to COVID-19 cases in England: an increase of 1 m3 in PM2.5 level was associated with a 12% increase in COVID-19 cases.
We show that a pre-existing diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease predicts the highest risk of COVID-19 and mortality among elderly individuals. In contrast, Parkinson’s disease patients were found to have a higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection but not mortality from COVID-19.
We showed that paracetamol intake was associated with a lower occurrence of COVID-19 in our cohort. We also found that paracetamol led to decreased ACE2 protein levels in cultured cells.
I an a co-founder at the International Sleep Charity!
Sleep is super important to maintain brain health. However, many factors including genetics
and habitual can cause poor sleep. My role at the charity is to conduct research to
find the causes for poor sleep and develop treatments to help people sleep better!
I am currently a PhD student in Dr L. Miguel Martins' research group.
I previously graduated from Imperial College London in 2019 with a BSc
in Biological Sciences (first-class honours). During my first degree,
I completed internships with Dr Giorgio Gilestro to investigate sleep
in flies as well as with Prof Masud Husain and Dr Michele Veldsman to
investigate associations between poor sleep and neuroimaging markers.
In my spare time, I like to row and participate in hackathons.
Symposium for Biological and Life Sciences Conference · Nov 2022
Project: Parp mutations protect from Alzheimer’s disease pathology
Issued by Precision Health Initiative Launch Symposium · Nov 2022
Project: Personalised medicine in Alzheimer’s disease
Issued by Gordon Research Conference (Neurobiology of Brain Disorders) · Aug 2022
Project: Parp mutations protect from mitochondrial toxicity in Alzheimer’s disease
Issued by Alzheimer's Research UK, East Network · May 2022
Project: Parp mutations protect from mitochondrial toxicity in Alzheimer’s disease
Issued by British Neuroscience Association · Nov 2021
Project: Parp mutations protect from mitochondrial toxicity in Alzheimer’s disease
Issued by The Genetics Society · Sep 2019
Project: Reactive oxygen species as a signalling mechanism of homeostatic sleep regulation
Issued by The Physiological Society · Jul 2019
Project: Molecular modelling of the GABAA receptor reveals a novel gating mechanism
Issued by Imperial College London · 2018-2019
Outstanding contribution to student experience
Issued by The Wessex Safety, Quality and Improvement Conference · Feb 2019
Project: A novel study on noise frequencies in a general medicine ward at a UK district general hospital
Issued by The Wessex Safety, Quality and Improvement Conference · Feb 2019
Project: A novel study on noise frequencies in a general medicine ward at a UK district general hospital
Issued by Tsinghua International Summer School · Jul 2017
Fully-funded Tsinghua International Summer School
Project: Carbon emission monitoring to reduce carbon emission in China.
Thanks for visiting my page! Please contact me via yizhou0421 [at] gmail.com or use the form submission below if you have any questions or wish to connect.
