Dzwokai (Zach) Ma

Biography

I conducted my graduate research at the Chemistry Department of UC Berkeley where I worked on gene regulation and DNA supercoiling in bacteria with Dr. J. Hearst, as well as bacterial multi-drug transporters with Dr. H. Nikaido. I then became a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Dr. Lily Jan at UC San Francisco and studied the trafficking of potassium channels in neurons. I started my research group at UC Santa Barbara in 2004.

Research

Measles is a childhood infection with high morbidity and mortality. The causative agent, measles virus, is an enveloped virus belonged to the family Paramyxoviridae, which also include many other human pathogens. Current data suggest that these viruses are replicated in specific cytoplasmic loci called the inclusion bodies; however, the molecular mechanism governing the formation of inclusion bodies remains unknown. We are using a combination of cell biology and biochemistry approaches to identify the host and viral factors involved in this process and investigate how the interactions of these factors regulate the structure and function of inclusion bodies.