Zong Ming Chua Email & Phone Number

San Francisco Bay Area

La Jolla

My research is focused on investigating the modulation of key cellular senescence phenotypes by altering the epigenome of senescent cells. We discovered a novel role of nucleosomal stability in regulating expression of the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) in senescent cells. My work is focused on characterizing the mechanisms underlying this phenotype and better understanding the role of histone variant H2A.Z in senescence.As part of this project, I utilized trained ResNets to assay the epigenetic visual morphology of cells with altered nucleosomal stability. Furthermore, I worked on integrating analyses of CUT&TAG and bulk / single-cell RNA-seq datasets to characterize the associated changes in a cell's transcriptomic and epigenetic landscapes with altered nucleosomal stability.As part of my work in exploring the role of ML in biology, I have worked on improving the prediction of de novo protein functions through the use of Protein language models. We benchmarked our model within the CAFA 5 competition (2023) to show comparable performance with best in class automated protein function prediction models.I have presented my work at numerous events including : "Investigating the effect of nucleosomal stability on cellular senescence" (8th International Cell Senescence Association (ICSA) Conference, poster, Oct 2023)"Transformer model based prediction of protein Gene Ontology terms in the CAFA5 competition" (International Society for Computational Biology-SCS symposium, talk, July 2023)"Using deep learning to investigate the effect of nucleosomal stability on cell phenotype" (GSBS Retreat, talk, May 2023)

San Diego

I worked on characterizing the binding profiles of RNA binding proteins for the ENCODE project using eCLIP.

Nicholas C. Spitzer Laboratory

I investigated the phenomenon of neuron switching via overexpression of postsynaptic GABA receptors in the model organism Xenopus Laevis.

Singapore

I investigated liver cirrhosis onset through choline deficient diet within a mouse model by performing genotyping as well as tissue staining and analysis.