Ph.D., Professor. Dr. Chen obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2007. She conducted postdoctoral research at Mayo Clinic and the University of Southern California from 2007 to 2011, focusing on the structure and function of G protein-coupled receptors and the design and screening of zinc finger proteins. Since joining USTC in 2011, she has focused on protein design and its applications in synthetic biology. Dr. Chen has received funding from programs including the Anhui Provincial Outstanding Youth Program, and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her research has been published in Nature, Nature Methods, Nature Computational Science, Nature Communications, and PNAS.
Main Research Interests
Protein design/engineering and its applications in synthetic biology
Representative Papers
1. Bin Huang#, Yang Xu#, Xiuhong Hu#, Yongrui Liu, Shanhui Liao, Jiahai Zhang, Chengdong Huang, Jingjun Hong, Quan Chen*, Haiyan Liu*, A backbone-centred energy function of neural networks for protein design, Nature, 602: 523–528 (2022)
2. Yufeng Liu#, Sheng Wang#, Jixin Dong, Linghui Chen, Xinyu Wang, Lei Wang, Fudong Li, Chenchen Wang, Jiahai Zhang, Yuzhu Wang, Si Wei, Quan Chen*, Haiyan Liu*, De novo protein design with a denoising diffusion network independent of pretrained structure prediction models, Nature Methods, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-024-02437-w
3. Yufeng Liu#, Lu Zhang#, Weilun Wang#, Min Zhu, Chenchen Wang, Fudong Li, Jiahai Zhang, Houqiang Li*, Quan Chen*, Haiyan Liu*, Rotamer-Free Protein Sequence Design Based on Deep Learning and Self-Consistency, Nature Computational Science, 2, pages451–462 (2022)
4. Xiuhong Hu, Yang Xu, Chenchen Wang, Yufeng Liu, Lu Zhang, Jiahai Zhang, Wenning Wang*, Quan Chen*, Haiyan Liu*. Combined prediction and design reveal the target recognition mechanism of an intrinsically disordered protein interaction domain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2023, 120 (39) e2305603120
5. Peng Xiong#, Meng Wang#, Xiaoqun Zhou, Tongchuan Zhang, Jiahai Zhang, Quan Chen*, Haiyan Liu*, Protein design with a comprehensive statistical energy function and boosted by experimental selection for foldability, Nature Communications, 2014, 5:5330
6. Long, Pengpeng; Zhang, Lu; Huang, Bin; Chen, Quan*; Haiyan, Liu*; Integrating genome sequence and structural data for statistical learning to predict transcription factor binding sites; Nucleic Acids Research, 2020, 48(22): 12604–12617.
7. Xiuhong Hu#, Yang Xu#, Junxi Yi1#, Chenchen Wang, Zhongliang Zhu, Ting Yu, Haiyan Zhang, Xinyu Wang, Fan Wu, Lin Xue, Li Bai, Haiyan Liu*, Quan Chen*, Using protein design and directed evolution to monomerize a bright near-infrared fluorescent protein, ACS Synthetic Biology, 2024, 13, 4, 1177–1190
Contact Information
Email: chenquan@ustc.edu.cn
Phone: 63607450
[http://biocomp.ustc.edu.cn](http://biocomp.ustc.edu.cn)