Jian Huang

Jian Huang

PhD candiate, Computational Biophysics

received CBI fellowship

less than 1 minute read

CBI program (Chemistry-Biology Interface) is a highly competitive UMass-funded and NIH-funded fellowship, aiming at training trainees from different background to advance scientific research “at the interface of chemistry and biology”.

What I did so far as a CBI trainee

  1. Drug design course
    • Understand drug development process, including drug discovery, screening, optimization and clinical trials;
    • Computational aided drug discovery and Structural-based drug design;
    • Macromolecular drug development, such as antibody, DNA and RNA.
  2. CBI chalk talk
    • CBI chalk talk is a course that is monthly held to gather CBI community to disscuss cutting edge topics.
  3. attend workshops
    • I attended a OPT workshop “Crafting Slides for Engaging Presentations” (Nov 16th). I also made my own logo and PPT template.
  4. CBI traineeship talk
    • As a CBI trainee, I was requested to give a talk to both chemistry and biology students
    • The talk topic: Hydrophobic gating in bundle-crossing ion channels: a case study of TRPV4”
  5. Future plan

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Won the 2nd place research presentation in the 2024 annual Chemistry ResearchFest event

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After finished my 3-month internship at Merck, I attended the annual Researchfest event held by the Chemistry department of UMass Amherst. Luckily, I was selected as one of four presentators in this event as the representatives to show research in the department. I won the second place for the presentation and was awarded the Dr. Paul Hatheway Terry Endowment Award as first-runner up

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Published Paper: Targeting TRP Channels: Recent Advances in Structure, Ligand Binding and Molecular Mechanisms

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In this short review, we summarize recent progresses toward understanding the structural basis of TRP channel function, as well as potential ligand binding sites that could be targeted for therapeutics.

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Published Paper: Hydrophobic gating in bundle crossing channels

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Transmembrane ion channels frequently regulate ion permeation by forming bundle crossing of the pore-lining helices when deactivated. The resulting physical constriction is believed to serve as the de facto gate that imposes the major free energy barrier to ion permeation. Intriguingly, many ion channels also contain highly hydrophobic inner pores enclosed by bundle crossing, which can undergo spontaneous dewetting and give rise to a “vapor barrier” to block ion flow even in the absence of physical constriction. Using atomistic simulations, we show that hydrophobic gating and bundle-crossing mechanisms co-exist and complement one and another in the human TRPV4 channel. In particular, a single hydrophilic mutation in the lower pore can increase pore hydration and reduce the ion permeation free energy barrier by about half without affecting the bundle crossing. We believe that hydrophobic gating may play a key role in other bundle-crossing ion channels with hydrophobic inner pores.

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Jian passed ORP exam and is now a Ph.D candidate!

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Original research proposal (ORP) is an exam designed to test the ability of graduate students to identify significant scientific questions, to develop research proposals based on rationized and reasonable hypotheses, and more importantly to successfully defend the proposal.

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