Weijin Xu

2014.09 - Present Dissertation research in Michael Rosbash lab (2017 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine) • Optimizing TRIBE technique Enhanced the enzymatic activity of the RNA editing enzyme ADAR by mutating its active site, significant increased signal intensity of TRIBE and reduced false-negative rate. Use NGS to identify the edited targets. • Modifying TRIBE to study RNA translation Using modified TRIBE method associated with ribosome and scRNA-seq to profile the translatome at single cell level • Using TRIBE to study TDP-43 targets in rat cortical neurons Used lentiviral vector to transfect TDP-43 TRIBE into rat cortical neurons, identified TDP-43 targets. Proposed and verified the mechanism of TDP-43 disruption that leads to dendritic complexity defects in ALS pathology. • Commercializing TRIBE Received $26,500 funding from Brandeis SPROUT program

2011 - 2014 Thesis research in Long Yu lab in SKLGE • Meta-analysis of HCC gene expression profile Integrated published microarray data, use R to identify spliceosome proteins are key mis-expressed candidates. • Phylogenetic analysis of cell cycle proteins