As technology increasingly enables scientists to peer into the hidden workings of biological organisms, Yale's Kexin Zhang is building her career around a cutting-edge technique that helps scientists visualize and study the inner components of cells.
"Our field is really at the frontier of structural biology," says, Zhang who joined Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences this fall, as assistant professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, after completing her postdoctoral training at the UMass Chan Medical School in Massachusetts. "It's letting us observe the intricacies of cells in detail in their intact environment."
In the latest edition of Office Hours, a Q&A series that introduces new Yale faculty members to the broader community, Zhang discusses the complex terrain of cellular life, teaching that meets students where they are, and why New Haven is the perfect sized city.
| Title | Assistant Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry |
|---|---|
| Prior Institution | UMass Chan Medical School |
| Research Interest | In situ structural biology |
| Started at Yale | Sept. 1, 2026 |
Tell me about your research
Kexin Zhang: In situ structural biology is a field that studies molecular structures by peering directly inside intact, frozen cells and tissues. The technique I use is called cryogenic electron microscopy [cryo-EM]. We freeze cells and image them so that we can view them in their natural setting. Instead of purifying proteins from cells and studying them separately, we study them in the cellular environment. We want to understand how these molecular machines behave, how they function and interact with each other in their native environment.
From the picture we take, we then try to identify different objects in the cell. It's like object detection in autonomous driving. The car needs to figure out where everything is. Where are pedestrians, or trees, or animals? We're trying to identify and locate individual molecular complexes in this very complex environment. Cells are a super crowded environment. They're densely populated, and there's a lot going on.
Can you describe a specific research project you're working on?
Zhang: Well, right now I'm interested in making the cryogenic electron microscopy technique really scalable. There are so many cell components that we want to study, and searching for them one by one is going to take long time if you exhaustively search all the possibilities. I'm working on using machine learning to make the process faster and scalable. My dream is to get the picture from the microscope and then be able to immediately scan the entire image and have a nice picture of where everything is.
What is your approach to teaching?
Zhang: Students come from very different backgrounds, so I try to make sure the material is accessible to all of them. Some of them have a lot of exposure to mathematics or science in high school, and some of them don't. You really need to balance everyone's needs throughout classroom discussions and lab sessions because they have kind of different kind of questions. I want them all to walk away with some knowledge and practical skills.
What do you do when you're not working?
Zhang: I like hiking, and this whole area is amazing because there are so many forests and trails. I'm currently living in Orange, so I have access to so many forested areas. My husband and I also like to go fishing off the coast, and I like reading science fiction.
How are you finding the city of New Haven?
Zhang: It's the size of city that I really like because it's very accessible. It's easy to get to museums and theaters and restaurants. You have a lot of city life, but at the same time, it's not as overwhelming as, say, New York City.
