Xin Zhou
Built TORCAR, an early genetically encoded FRET reporter that lets mTORC1 activity be watched in living cells
Senior Scientist, Eikon Therapeutics · formerly postdoc (Johns Hopkins, 2010–2015) and Associate Project Scientist (UC San Diego, 2015–2022) in Jin Zhang's lab · PhD, Medicinal Chemistry, University of Minnesota
Portrait: LinkedIn profile photo of Xin Zhou
Xin Zhou earned a PhD in medicinal chemistry at the University of Minnesota, then joined Jin Zhang's lab at Johns Hopkins as a postdoc in 2010. The lab builds fluorescent sensors that show when an enzyme is working inside a living cell. When the lab moved to UC San Diego in 2015, Zhou moved with it as an associate project scientist and stayed until 2022, then went to industry as a scientist at Eikon Therapeutics in California.
TORCAR is a small protein that mTORC1 phosphorylates, built so that the phosphorylation changes how two fluorescent parts pass energy to each other (FRET). A microscope can read that change in a single living cell, second by second. Before such reporters, mTORC1 activity was usually measured in lysates of many cells at fixed time points. With TORCAR the team saw mTORC1 working not only at the lysosome but also in the cytosol, the nucleus and at the plasma membrane, and saw a short calcium spike after growth-factor stimulation feed into mTORC1 activity.
Milestones in the Atlas
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | M | Dynamic Visualization of mTORC1 Activity in Living Cells ZHO2015 First author on TORCAR, a FRET sensor that shows mTORC1 activity changing in living cells and in different parts of the cell, depending on which signal switched it on. |
Co-authors in the Atlas
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Xin Zhou.
- Jin Zhang Builds fluorescent biosensors that show where and when signalling enzymes are active inside living cells; senior author of TORCAR, an early live-cell reporter of mTORC1