Guifang Jia 

Co-Investigator, Department of Chemical Biology, Peking University

Co-Investigator, Synthetic and Functional Biomolecules Center (SFBC), Peking University

Education and Research Background

Guifang Jia, born in 1978 at Taiyuan, China. Dr. Jia obtained her B.S. degree in Chemistry from China Agricultural University (CAU) in 2002 and her Ph.D. degree in Pesticide Science in 2008 from China Agricultural University. Since 2007 she turned her research direction completely and started her research in Chemical Biology with Professor Chuan He as a visiting student and a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago. In 2012 she joined Peking University as an associated professor.

Research Direction and Achievements

My research focuses on the functions of reversible RNA methylation in biological regulation. We hope to study new biology and pathways to identify some new drug targets. Research directions include:

• RNA demethylation, methylation and related RNA binding proteins of RNA methylation;

• The functions of RNA methylation modifications in long non-coding RNA;

• The functions of RNA methylation modifications in plant;

• The pathological pathways of RNA demethylase, the fat associated protein FTO.

Recent Publications

1. Guifang Jia, Ye Fu, Chuan He.“Reversible RNA adenosine methylation in biological regulation”,Trends in Genetics, 2012, Ahead of print.

2. Guanqun Zheng, John Arne Dahl, Yamei Niu, Peter Fedorcsak, Chun-Min Huang, Charles J. Li, Cathrine B. Vagbo, Yue Shi, Wen-Ling Wang, Shu-Hui Song, Zhike-Lu, Ralph P.G. Bosmans, Qing Dai, Ya-Juan Hao, Xin Yang, Wen-Ming Zhao, Wei-Min Tong, Xiu-Jie Wang, Florian Bogdan, Kari Furu, Ye Fu, Guifang Jia, Xu Zhao, Jun Liu, Hans E. Krokan, Arne Klungland, Yun-Gui Yang, Chuan He. “ALKBH5 is a mammalian RNA demethylase that impacts RNA metabolism and mouse fertility”. Mol. Cell. 2012, Ahead of press.

3. Baoen Chen, Fei Ye, Lu Yu, Guifang Jia, Xiaotian Huang, Xueju Zhang, Shuying Peng, Kai Chen, Meining Wang, Shouze Gong, Ruihan Zhang, Jinya Yin, Haiyan Li, Yiming Yang, Hong Liu, Jiwen Zhang, Haiyan Zhang, Ao Zhang, Hualiang Jiang, Cheng Luo, Cai-Guang Yang. “Development of cell-active N6-methyladenosine RNA demethylase FTO inhibitor”, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2012, 134: 17963.

4. Chengqi Yi, Baoen Chen, Bo Qi, Wen Zhang, Guifang Jia, Liang Zhang, Charles Q. Li, Aaron Dinner, Cai-Guang Yang, Chuan He. “Duplex DNA Interrogation by a Direct DNA Repair Protein”, Nature Structure & Molecular Biology, 2012, 19: 671

5. Guifang Jia*, Ye Fu*, Xu Zhao*, Qing Dai, Guanqun Zheng, Ying Yang, Chengqi Yi, Tomas Lindahl, Tao Pan, Yungui Yang, Chuan He. “N6-Methyladenosine in Nuclear RNA is a Major Substrate of the Obesity-Associated FTO”, Nature Chemical Biology, 2011, 7: 885. (*并列第一作者)

6. Chengqi Yi, Guifang Jia, Guanhua Hou, Qing Dai, Wen Zhang, Guanqun Zheng, Xing Jian, Cai-Guang Yang, Qiang Cui, Chuan He. “Iron-Catalyzed Oxidation Intermediates Captured in a DNA Repair Dioxygenase” Nature, 2010, 468: 330

7. Guifang Jia*, Cai-Guang Yang*, Shangdong Yang, Xing Jian, Chengqi Yi, Chuan He, “Oxidative demethylation of 3-meT and 3-meU in single-stranded DNA and RNA by mouse and human FTO”, FEBS Letters, 2008, 582: 3313-3319. (*并列第一作者)