Email

wenjun.zhou@bcm.edu

Positions

Instructor

Medicine
Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX US

Education

Postdoctoral Training at Baylor College of Medicine

12/2019 - Housotn, Texas United States

Neuroscience and Metabolism

Postdoctoral Training at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center

11/2014 - Houston, Texas United States

Neuropathic Pain and Mood Disorder

Postdoctoral Training at University of Alabama at Birmingham

11/2011 - Birmingham, Alabama United States

Mood Disorder

PhD from University of Shizuoka

03/2009 - Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Japan

Nutritional Neuroscience

Professional Interests

• Type 2 Diabetes
• Neurocognitive Function
• Environmental Stress and Metabolism disorders

Professional Statement

My research is focused on transcriptional regulation of energy metabolism and neurocognition by endocrine factors, environmental factors, and the circadian clock. I am interested in type 2 diabetes, mood disorders, and neurocognitive impairment.

Websites

Selected Publications

• Sungguan Hong, Wenjun Zhou, ..., Mitchell A Lazar, Zheng Sun "Dissociation of muscle insulin sensitivity from exercise endurance in mice by HDAC3 depletion." Nat Med. 2017 Feb;23 Pubmed PMID: 27991918
• Wenjun Zhou, Yanlin He, ..., Zheng Sun "Loss of function of NCOR1 and NCOR2 impairs memory through a novel GABAergic hypothalamus-CA3 projection.." Nat Neurosci. 2019 Feb;22 Pubmed PMID: 30664766
• Kong Y, Zhou W, Sun Z "Nuclear receptor corepressors in intellectual disability and autism." Mol Psychiatry. 2020 Feb; Pubmed PMID: 32034290
• Hanneke L D M Willemen, ..., Wenjun Zhou, ..., Niels Eijkelkamp "Identification of FAM173B as a protein methyltransferase promoting chronic pain." PLoS Biol .. 2018 Feb;16 Pubmed PMID: 29444090

Memberships

American Diabetes Association

Membership (01/2019)

Society for Neuroscience

Membership (04/2010)

Funding

Regulation of hepatic insulin sensitivity by the hypothalamic circadian clock - #ADA 1-19-PDF-012

(01/01/2019 - 12/31/2022) Grant funding from American Diabetes Association

Many living organisms on earth have evolved a 24h circadian patterns for sleeping, hunting, and eating, which is entrained by sunlight. Industrialized human society has changed our living environment and led to disruption of circadian rhythm by enhan nighttime light, nighttime activity, shiftwork, and social jetlag. And according to the reports from both clinic and animal model, circadian disruption will induce many metabolic disorders, such as glucose intolerance, and insulin resistance. These are highly related with type2 diabetes. This study will identify the pathological reasons of why, and how circadian disruption will cause the symptoms of type2 diabetes. The central clock structure, called suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), locates in the ventral part of hypothalamus, a sub-region of the brain. SCN controls and synchronizes the temporal events which should happen in the different peripheral tissues at different time partially depending on the light received by the retina. For these reasons, SCN is an ideal candidate for studying how circadian disruption changes metabolism. Based on the animal models involved in the current study, the molecular and neuronal targets of SCN, which directly regulate blood glucose level, can be identified. It will potentially refresh the insight of how circadian disruption inferring the glucose metabolism and provide a possible new treatment way.