Zhen Xia

Zhen Xia ,who also goes by the name Bruce , is interested in understanding and engineering biological molecular systems for pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. He is also cooperating with the Computational Biology Center at IBM Research to study the relationship between protein sequence, structure, and function using computational biology and bioinformatics approaches. Currently, Zhen is focusing on understanding the protein folding/recognition and structure-function prediction, which is of fundamental importance in life science and the health-care industry. He is developing multi-scale models to simulate and predict molecular dynamic structures, and to engineer novel molecules from small-molecule drugs to nano-materials.

Zhen’s academic goal in pursuing a Ph.D. is to gain the knowledge, skill, ability, and insight needed to allow him to become a researcher who is highly specialized in computational biomolecular engineering. As a Ph.D. candidate in the Biomedical Engineering Department, Zhen is working on predicting and modeling the three-dimensional structure of crucial macro-biomolecules (i.e., proteins and RNAs) in a biological system. The ultimate research objective is to develop a novel, physical based approach and apply software tools to efficiently and accurately predict and model RNA structures. Zhen Xia’s hope is that the computational techniques developed during his project will also benefit the scientific community broadly.

He feels that the research to be conducted in the 2012-2013 academic year is extremely critical and essential to complete his whole project. It will also bridge the gap between his current portfolio of expertise and knowledge with his future research career. Zhen has a sincere appreciation for the support he has been provided because it stands as a launching pad to the next phase of his future research career.