Huaijun Zhou
National Poultry Genome Coordinator, USDA
Date:
Wednesday, 24 October, 2018
Room:
Salle de Conférence Marc Ridet, INRA Castanet-Tolosan
Summary:
Professor Huaijun Zhou has diverse research programs. One of main areas is to elucidate the molecular and cellular mechanisms of host-pathogen interaction including disease resistance, immune response, and pathogen, gut microbiome, and host immune system interaction. He is the Director of USAID funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Genomics to Improve Poultry. The specific goal of the program is to identify genetic markers associated with resistance to Newcastle disease (ND) and heat stress and develop selection platform to select and breed genetically enhanced ND resistant chickens for rural farmers in Africa. He is also leading an effort to understand underlying mechanism of Salmonella colonization and persistence in young chicks by evaluating how Salmonella interact with gut microorganism using diverse molecular techniques and genomic technology. Another area of his research is to functionally annotate regulatory elements of livestock species by integrating RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, and ATAC-seq across different tissues in chicken, pig and cattle.