ZHAI Jixian

Hello, I am Jixian Zhai. I got my BS at University of Science and Technique of China, and now I'm a graduate student major in biology, studying epigenetics (I will explain this word later). I’m very happy to be admitted to CSSS2007. I would love to spend my time with people who are interested in complexity.

Let me introduce my research interest a little. The study of complexity had come to central stage and brought the systematic view to all its associated disciplines. Complex Adaptive System (CAS), such as economic and biological systems, had been defined by Dr. John H. Holland as a collectivity of interacting agents which could absorb information from its surroundings and perform certain actions. CAS contains many levels of organization built up from bottom to up with agents in one level used as building blocks for agents in higher level (reference). One appealing property of CAS is that it could adapt to the changing environment by constantly revising and rearranging its building blocks, for examples, by learning and evolution. However, the dominant theory of evolution, which is mainly based on stochastic genetic alternation and natural selection, had largely ignored the inner modulation of organism as a CAS for adaptation.

Epigenetics, which is defined as the study of stable, or even more, heritable alternation in gene expression without change in DNA sequence, has remarkable potential for this inner regulation of gene expression pattern to adapt to the environment. Especially, small interfering RNA, which could direct heterochromatic modification and/or DNA methylation at corresponding sequence and further influence the gene expression nearby, is a perfect candidate for quickly and heritably alter the epigenetic state of its specific target region. I am now working on the small RNA directed epigenetic natural variation in model plant Arabidopsis, and eager to explore the role of epigenetic alternation in evolution. I would like to share my discoveries with you, and I’m also willing to learn from you.

If you have any question, please email me: jxzhai@genetics.ac.cn

Regarding to Dr. Feldman’s questions:

1. “What topics do you have some expertise in and would you be willing to help others learn them?”

I would like to give an introduction of epigenetics, and its relationship with complexity. Also, since I’ve done a lot of sequence analysis, I could help people who are interested in. I will bring a poster of my work.

2. “What do you want to learn at the CSSS?”

I want to improve my modeling skills, to hear more about complexity, and the most important: make some friends who share common interests.

3. “Do you have any projects or research interests that would benefit from an interdisciplinary approach?”

Definitely. I want to make some models for evolution at the epigenetic level, and that requires an interdisciplinary approach.

4. “Do you have any ideas for what sort of project you would like to do work on with other CSSS students this summer?”

No. I would like to join the project of any other field if I found it interesting.

5. “Suppose you could travel one-hundred years in the future and ask researchers any three questions. What would those questions be?”

Q1: Can you artificially make some thing alive from the basic materials? Q2: Can computer think now? Q3: How long do you think the human race could survive? (To be honest, I’m not quite optimistic about out future.)