Peking University, Dec.18, 2011: Professor Zhu Weiguo from Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department, School of Basic Medical Sciences of Peking University was awarded second prize of Wuxiapptec Biochemistry Award on December 12th at the 5th Wuxiapptec Biochemistry Award Ceremony. The ceremony took place in Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. Deputy Chairman of the standing committer of People’s Congress Sang Guowei, former vice chairman of the CPPCC national committee Zhang Huaixi attended and presented the award to the winners.
Wuxiapptec Biochemistry Award was established by world-leading Pharmaceutical enterprise Wuxiapptec in 2007, verified by the Science and Technology Office, Ministry of Science and Technology, aiming to reward young scientific talents with outstanding achievements in Biochemistry sphere and other related fields. The awards area of this year was disease biology in which 15 winners were selected by Board consisted of several academicians and experts.
Professor Zhu`s award-winning work was The mechanism of Histone deacetylase. He led his laboratory to conduct large amount of in-depth research in epigenetic inheritance .His latest representative papers include Ying Zhao, et al, Cytosolic FoxO1 is essential for the induction of autophagy and tumour suppressor activity. Nat Cell Biol. 2010，12 (7):665-675 and Xiangyu Liu et al, Methyltransferase Set7/9 regulates p53 activity by interacting with Sirtuin 1 (SIRT1). PNAS， 2011，108(5):1925-30. in which the roles of III type HDAC SIRT and SIRT1 in carcinogenesis were explored. His researches have gained extensive attentions from his global counterparts.
Several original achievements of epigenetic inheritance mechanism of carcinogenesis of his laboratory have also won the 1st price of natural science, outstanding scientific Research Achievement Award of High Learning Institutions. In 2011,this laboratory have published a series of major research advances in international authoritative academic journals such as PNAS，Mol Cell Proteomics，FASEB J， Autophagy， J Mol Cell Bio etc.. The advances included identifying a special adjusting protein Set7/9 of deacetylase; proving that deacetylase can increase p53 transcriptional activity by inhibiting p53`s acetylation mediated by SIRT1; methods to forecast the specific substrate acetyltransferases(ASEB), discovering the epigenetic inheritance adjusting mechanism of gene expression; new mechanisms of 5-aza-CdR `s activation of methylated and non-methylated gene through pocket protein degradation.; that gene mutation of hepatocystin/80K-H（PRKCSH）can result in Autonomic Dominant PCLD, etc..
Written by: Wang Jingran
Edited by: Li Xiaomeng
Source: PKU News (Chinese)
