Dr. Shaojie Zhang’s Research

April 10, 2012

The research of Dr. Shaojie Zhang, an assistant professor in the Computer Science division of EECS, was described in Genome Technology magazine. The article (http://www.genomeweb.com/informatics/using-new-software-researchers-identify-rna-structural-motifs) describes Dr. Zhang’s software that helps researchers find “structural motifs” in the RNA of a sample. The article quotes Dr. Zhang as saying “RNA structural motifs are the recurrent substructures formed by the non-canonical base pairs with conserved geometries and functionalities.” The software builds on a previous program from Dr. Zhang and his group. Such structural motifs may be important for finding new understanding and treatment of disease. The article quotes Dr. Zhang as saying: “The RNA structural motifs are critical for many cellular functions and the dysfunction of these RNA structural motifs is likely to result in many diseases.”