Beiyun Zhou, PhD

Dr. Zhou’s research focuses on the delineation of mechanisms regulating alveolar epithelial cell (AEC) function, differentiation and plasticity in the context of lung injury and repair. A major focus has been to elucidate pathways (e.g., Hippo/YAP, Wnt/B-catenin, TGF-B/Smad, Forkhead box (Fox) and GATA6) as well as transcriptomic and epigenomic regulations that control differentiation of the alveolar epithelium (including pulmonary stem/progenitor cell proliferation/differentiation) in order to understand how they are altered in disease and injury. Her current studies engaged in to investigate the role of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and the ER master regulator GRP78 in AEC abnormalities in chronic lung diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) using AEC-specific Grp78 knockout mice model. Her goal is to examine signaling pathways that modulate aberrant epithelial-mesenchymal interactions underlying ER stress-mediated fibrosis and identify new therapeutic approaches for pulmonary fibrosis.

• University of Southern California, Los Angeles — Ph.D — 05/2018 — Molecular Pharmacology and Toxicology
• Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology,Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shanghai — M.S — 07/1988 — Microbiology

• Role of Chaperone GRP78 and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in ER Stress-Mediated Pulmonary Fibrosis
  NIH · R01HL114959 · Aug 1, 2013 – Dec 31, 2025 · Role: Principal Investigator

• Crandall, Edward
• Maher, Toby
• Minoo, Parviz
• Offringa, Ite
• Chai, Yang
• Lenz, Heinz-Josef