Ruobo Zhou

Ruobo Zhou is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Biomedical Engineering at Pennsylvania State University, holding affiliations in the Eberly College of Science and College of Engineering. His research focuses on developing advanced imaging techniques and interdisciplinary approaches to study biomolecular interactions and subcellular organization in health and disease. Zhou leads the Zhou Lab, which employs super-resolution microscopy, proteomics, and omics technologies to explore topics such as liquid-liquid phase separation in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.

Education: B.S. in Applied Physics (University of Science and Technology of China), Ph.D. in Physics (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Postdoc in Harvard University (Xiaowei Zhuang's lab). Key honors include the 2023 Scialog Fellow for Bioimaging and NIH MIRA Award (2021). He teaches CHEM540 (Biophysical Chemistry) and CHEM112 (Chemical Principles II).

Research Interests: Super-resolution imaging, single-molecule detection, spatiotemporal biomolecule organization, liquid-liquid phase separation, neurobiology, RNA biology. Recent work includes discoveries about neuronal membrane skeletons and RTK signaling platforms, as well as proteomic analyses of cellular structures.

Lab Team: Includes postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates working on projects like transcriptome-scale imaging and phase separation mechanisms. Active in recruiting across physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering disciplines.