Liu Lab

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Liu (Zhe) Lab /

We build precision imaging tools to probe spatial and temporal control of cell fates during development and in adult tissues.

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A fertilized egg - a single cell - carrying one copy of mom's and one copy of dad's DNA is able to divide and differentiate to trillions of cells and hundreds of cell types in our body, enabling each of us to thrive in the society.

Our lab has focused on developing precision imaging tools to investigate molecular dynamics and cellular structures across various scales related to gene and genome regulation. Our techniques allow for the imaging of nanometer-scale molecular components like proteins and genomic loci in live cells. We also developed super-resolution methods, such as 3D ATAC-PALM, to map genome organization in single cells, helping us study how protein complexes like cohesin regulate chromatin clustering and gene co-expression at the single-cell level.

Inspired by these findings, we recently developed cycleHCR, a deep-tissue spatial omics tool for multiplex imaging of RNA and proteins in large tissue samples. This tool simultaneously captures spatial gene expression and high-resolution subcellular architecture in large tissue specimens. Moving forward, our goal is to combine these tools with optically-encoded genetic perturbations to identify the molecules and networks that regulate high-dimensional gene co-expression patterns during development and in adult tissues.

Enabled by the embryo from Alejandro Aguilera Castrejon, Cellpose from Carsen Stringer and RS-FISH from Stephan Preibisch

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"Function follows form

at present while form

follows function during

evolution."

- my take

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Liu (Zhe) Lab