Jinrou Li

I'm currently an undergraduate student at the School of Life Sciences at Peking University, majoring in Biological Sciences. Since February 2022, I have been carrying out my undergraduate reserach in Song Lab at Peking University, led by Dr. Yan Song. Since July, 2023, I started my second scientific research in Dr. Amy S.Y. Lee's lab at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute / Harvard Medical School as a visiting undergrad.

I will receive my B.S. from Peking University in 2024. After that, I would like to pursue a Ph.D. degree and continue with my interest in the fascinating biological mechanisms. 🔬🧬🐁🐰

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Charles River, 2023

Structure determination of human eIF3 subunit d (eIF3d) cap-binding domain
eIF3 mediates transcript-specific translation initiation through the non-canonical cap-binding protein eIF3d. My research project seeks to take a structural perspective and determine the structure of the eIF3d cap-binding domain bound to RNA through X-ray crystallography. Due to the limitation of X-ray crystallography, I performed systematic bioengineering to generate eIF3d mutants to identify a construct where the eIF3d cap-binding domain could be isolated bound to mRNA. I successfully identified a mutant and used a baculovirus-insect cell system to express and purify recombinant human eIF3d–mRNA for X-ray crystallography.

Figuring out the components of non-canonical 48S preinitiation complex
After binding to mRNA caps, the non-canonical translation machinery also needs to form 48S pre-initiation complex to complete initiation. But it is not known how other translation factors or RNA-binding proteins contribute to formation of this fundamentally distinct non-canonical 48S initiation complex. I developed a method to effectively purify the 48S preinitiation complex in eIF3-mediated non-canonical translation initiation from cell lysates through polysome profiling and biotinylated RNA pull-down. Now I am optimizing the purification on different RNA targets and preparing 48S complex samples for mass spectrometry.

Technical skills: insect-baculovirus protein expression, protein purification, RNA technologies(in-vitro trancription, in-vitro translation), polysome profiling

The project discovered that Prox1 helps specify neuro stem cell identity and promotes progenitor cell differentiation through liquid-liquid phase separation(LLPS) during early hippocampus development. I screened epigenetic markers and found out Prox1 colocalizes with H3K9me3, a heterochromation marker on the chromosome. I confirmed the functional collaboration between Prox1 and H3K9me3 'writer' SUV39H1 in the mouse brain through in-utero electroporation. And confirmed their interation with co-immunoprecipitation. Considering the known LLPS ability of SUV39H1, I hypothesized they co-phase seperation on Prox1 target genes to achieve efficient gene-specific repression. I also conducted mutagenesis to generate interaction-deficient mutants for those two prteins and prepare to test them in the mouse model.

Technical skills: Cloning, Cell Culture, Confocal imaging, Mouse experiments(Perfusion, Brain dissection, Cryosection), Western Blot, Co-immunoprecipitation

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Harvard Medical School
Visiting Undergraduate Researcher in CIV
Jul 2023 - present

Research Advisor: Prof. Amy S.Y. Lee

Peking University
Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences
Sep 2020 - Jul 2024 (expected)

Honors & Awards:

● 87 Excellent Undergraduate Research Project Scholarship
● Best Oral Presenter of the 9TH symposium for Undergraduate Honor Program in Biology
● The third Prize of Peking University Scholarship in 2022
● Award for Academic Excellents in 2021-2022
● Award for Academic Excellents in 2020-2021

CD8+T cells' different phenotypes in cancer and autoimmunity, the crucial biological functions of the balance between the dual roles.

Influence of mitochondria morphology and metabolism on neural fate decision, mitochondria associated neural diseases and current treatments.

Recent applications of non-CRISPR base editors in mitochondria genome, its future development and therapeutical potential.

Mechanisms behind epigenetic inheritance, especially focus on DNA methylation: how and why can epigenetic information be passed across generations? Is DNA sequence the only inheritance material?

Explanation of the catalyzing mechanism of human ribonuclease P holoenzyme from structure and evolutionary insights.

• The discovery and development of CRISPR-Cas9 tools, specially focus on base editors and its applications.

Design and source code from Jon Barron's website