On April 9, 2025, Prof. Charles Cox from the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute was invited by Prof. Chen Song to deliver a CQB seminar titled "A new family of PIEZO channel auxiliary subunits". He introduced his team's discovery of MyoD-family inhibitor proteins (MDFIC and MDFI) as auxiliary subunits of PIEZO1/2 channels. Cryo-EM studies revealed their direct binding to PIEZO2's pore module. Prof. Charles Cox provides extensive data, highlighting their role as key regulators integrating mechanical signals into transcriptional pathways.

Qingyang's study on glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPx4) has been published online in the J. Mol. Biol. (Link). Conducted in collaboration with Prof. Luhua Lai's lab, the research combines multiscale molecular dynamics simulations with experimental assays to reveal the detailed physical interactions between GPx4 and membranes composed of different phospholipids, and their peroxidized derivatives.

This work provides new insights into the molecular mechanisms of GPx4-membrane interactions. Congratulations to Qingyang on this significant achievement!

On March 31, 2025, the project kick-off meeting of the National Key R&D Program, "Principles of membrane protein design as functional modules", was launched at Peking University. Leaders from the China National Center for Biotechnology Development and Peking University attended, alongside experts from top institutions.

Project leader Prof. Chen Song highlighted the integration of AI and physics-driven methods to address challenges in membrane protein design, aiming for applications in biomanufacturing, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals. Experts stressed collaboration and practical impact.

Now in its implementation phase, the five-year project aims to advance synthetic biology and drive innovation in biotechnology.

We are delighted to welcome Yiechang (YC) Lin to our group! Yiechang holds a PhD from the Australian National University and brings a strong passion for studying lipid-protein interactions, membrane proteins, and leveraging AlphaFold to tackle key biological questions. Once again, welcome aboard, YC!

As we close the chapter on 2024, CQB annual meeting (2024) was held on January 4, 2025. Jingze presented her research on the molecular mechanics study of the ion channel NOMPC and was awarded the scholarship of quantitative biology. Lingfeng and Zefeng received the second and third prizes for their poster presentations, respectively. Additionally, the group members have excelled in their contributions this year. Congratulations!!

Invited by the the Ministry of Education, Prof. Chen Song and collaborators designed a showcase class for the future AI-assisted education at the Global MOOC and Online Education Conference 2024, held in London on December 12th, 2024. Prof. Chen Song and Prof. Sai Li co-developed this class of computational biology, an interdisciplinary field deeply influenced by AI. Zefeng Zhu and Ruihan Dong from Song Group participated in the development as well as the live demonstration of the class in London.

Jingze Duan's first paper focusing on NOMPC has been published online in eLife (Link). NOMPC, a mechanosensitive ion channel from the TRP family, converts mechanical stimuli into ionic signals to excite neurons. Using all-atom molecular dynamics simulations, we identified that torque on the TRP domain toward the extracellular side directly drives channel opening, with compression and twisting of the AR domain coupling to facilitate this process. These findings support a twist-to-open gating model mediated by the AR domain's compression-twist coupling. Congratulations!

Chang Liu's inaugural paper on Ca²⁺-membrane interactions has been published in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. (Link). This research, conducted in collaboration with Prof. Rui Ma's laboratory, offers novel insights into the mechanisms underlying various biological phenomena associated with Ca²⁺-membrane interactions. The findings may pave the way for innovative approaches to manipulate the membrane curvature of vesicles in chemical, biological, and nanotechnological applications. Congratulations!

Prof. Chen Song was honored with an invitation to deliver a talk at the 2024 Frontier Symposium in Computational Chemistry, Biophysics, and Biological Sciences, which was held at the University of Seoul, Korea, from November 8th to November 10th, 2024. He presented our group's research titled "CTGoMartini: Simulating Protein Conformational Transitions with Gō-Martini Models." This symposium provides a fantastic opportunity for knowledge sharing in the field. Additionally, Lingfeng, a member of our group, also attended the conference.