Prof. GUI Miao from Zhejiang University was invited to IHB on April 14, 2023. (Credit: IHB)

Prof. GUI Miao from Zhejiang University was invited to the Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and delivered a lecture titled "Deciphering the Mechanisms of Ciliary Movement and Ciliopathy Formation using Structural biology” on April 14^th, 2023.    

In the past decade, the use of cryo-electron microscopy (Cryo-EM) to analyze the structures of biomolecules has emerged as a cutting-edge technique. In previous research, Prof. Gui utilized single-particle Cryo-EM to establish a complete set of methods for giant organelle sample purification, cryo-electron microscopy structure analysis, and atomic modeling. He constructed a full atomic model of the ciliary skeleton, which includes nearly 200 types of proteins. This structure represents one of the largest molecular machines in eukaryotic cells.    

Towards the end of his lecture, Prof. Gui proposed new ideas for ciliopathy research based on structural biology. He identified multiple novel pathogenic genes and their mechanisms in ciliopathies, providing guidance for disease diagnosis and potential treatments.   

Prof. Gui has published 11 papers as a first or corresponding author in prestigious journals such as Cell, Science, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Cell Research, PNAS, with over 2000 citations on Google Scholar.    

He has received numerous honors and awards, including the Outstanding Scholar of Tsinghua University's Advanced Research Institute, the Outstanding Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School, the Outstanding Research Award for Chinese Scientists in Life Sciences at Harvard, and the Overseas Young Talent Award. He has also been consistently supported by funding grants such as the Merck-BCMP Fellowship and the Charles A. King Fellowship.