Zhuoxin Chen, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Assistant Professor Evgeny Kvon at the Department of Developmental & Cell Biology at the Charlie Dunlop School of Biological Sciences, has been awarded a prestigious K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR). This highly competitive award is designed to support exceptional early-career scientists in completing postdoctoral training and successfully transitioning to independent faculty positions. The award will fund her work in the Kvon Lab for an additional two years. As part of the award’s continuation, she will then receive another three years of research funding to start her independent academic laboratory.
Chen’s research in the Kvon lab focuses on understanding how 3D chromatin folding in the nucleus regulates gene expression during development, with a particular emphasis on enhancers, noncoding DNA elements that control when, where, and at what level genes are turned on.
“Zhuoxin is an outstanding scientist who excels both at the bench and in computational biology,” said Kvon. “Her K99/R00 project represents an exciting and independent direction that builds naturally on her postdoctoral work in gene regulation and has real potential to shed light on the genetic basis of craniofacial disorders. I have no doubt that she will become an impactful and independent research leader.”
Chen intends to continue her research as an independent faculty member to address a fundamental and clinically significant question: how do variants in regulatory non-coding parts of our genomes contribute to phenotypic facial changes and craniofacial malformations?