2nd Edition of Pharma R&D and Drug Discovery World Conference 2026

Biography

Dr. Ruobo Zhou earned his B.S. in Applied Physics from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He then pursued graduate studies with Prof. Taekjip Ha at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC), where he developed a hybrid single-molecule instrument combining optical tweezers with single-molecule fluorescence microscopy and applied this technique to illuminate critical protein-DNA interactions in vitro (cell-free systems) involved in DNA repair, replication, and recombination. Dr. Zhou then completed his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Prof. Xiaowei Zhuang in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, where he extended his analyses of functional biomolecular interactions from cell-free to in vivo systems, applying mass-spectrometry-based analysis and super- resolution fluorescence microscopy to study protein organizations and protein-protein interactions at the plasma membrane of neurons. In 2021, Dr. Zhou joined the Department of Chemistry at the Pennsylvania State University as an Assistant Professor. His research aims to quantitatively and functionally dissect the compartmentalization and spatiotemporal organization of protein-protein and protein-RNA interactions involved in fundamental cell functions as well as in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, from single-molecule to single-cell levels, using cutting-edge single-molecule techniques and super-resolution fluorescence microscopy, mathematical modeling, highly interdisciplinary cell and molecular biology tools, and high throughput “omics” approaches such as mass spectrometry-based proteomic analysis and transcriptome-scale RNA imaging. Dr. Zhou has been recognized with several awards, including being named an HHMI fellow of Life Sciences Research Foundation, a Scialog Fellow for Advancing Bioimaging, and a recipient of the NIGMS Maximizing Investigators&; Research Award (MIRA).