Assistant Professor Office: B314B Life Sciences Contact Phone Number: 542-9147 Lab: B316 Life Sciences Lab Phone: 542-0145 E-mail: szhao@bmb.uga.edu

Research Interests

My lab is using experimental and computational approaches to study genomic changes occurring during mammalian evolution and disease development.  The goal is to understand the roles of genomic changes playing in these normal and abnormal processes, as well as the mechanism through which these changes have taken place.  The lab has two ongoing projects currently.  The first one is to identify bona fide colorectal cancer genes via a novel comparative genomics and oncology strategy - by searching for genes that are commonly altered in human, dog and mouse colorectal tumors.  The second project focuses on “the junk DNA” of the human genome, which has allowed us to discover two giant composite retrotransposon-like elements DA and Xiao.  We are now conducting experiments to understand the nature of DA/Xiao and to explore their potential application in medicine and research.

Selected Recent Publications

• Ji X, Zhao S. (2008)  DA and Xiao – Two Composite and Giant LTR-retrotransposon like Structures Identified on the Human Genome. Genomics. 91:249-58.
  
  
• Shedlock AM, Botka CW, Zhao S, Shetty J, Zhang T, Liu JS, Deschavanne PJ, Edward SV.  (2007) Phylogenomics of nonavian reptiles and the structure of the ancestral amniote genome.  PNAS, 104:2767-72.
  
  
• Yohn CT, Jiang Z, McGrath SD, Hayden KE, Khaitovich P, Johnson ME, Eichler MY, McPherson JD, Zhao S, Paabo S, Eichler EE.  (2005) Lineage-specific expansions of retroviral insertions within the genomes of African great apes but not humans and orangutans.  PLoS Biol. e110.
  
  
• Zhao S, Shetty J, Hou L., Delcher A, Zhu Z, Osoegawa K, de Jong P, Nierman WC, Strausberg RL, Fraser CM. (2004) Human, Mouse and Rat Genome Large Scale Rearrangements: Stability Versus Speciation. Genome Res. 14:1851-60.
  
  
• Volik S, Zhao S, Chin K, Brebner JH, Herndon DR, Tao Q, Kowbel D, Huang G, Lapuk A, Kuo WL, Magrane G, De Jong P, Gray JW, Collins C. (2003) End-sequencing profiling:  Sequence-based analysis of aberrant genomes. PNAS 100:7696-701.
  
  
• Gregory SG, Sekhon M, Schein J, Zhao S, etc. (2002) A physical map of the mouse genome. Nature 418:743-50.
  
  
• Zhao S, Shatsman S, Ayodeji B, Geer K, Tsegaye G, Krol M, Gebregeorgis E, Shvartsbeyn A, Russell D, Overton L, Jiang L, Dimitrov G, Tran K, Shetty J, Malek JA, Feldblyum T, Nierman WC, Fraser CM. (2001) Mouse BAC Ends Quality Assessment and Sequence Analyses. Genome Res. 11:1736-1745.
  
  
• Venter JC, Adams MD, Myers EW, …Zhao S… (2001) The sequence of the human genome. Science 291: 1304-51.