Rate My Professor Jikui Song

Jikui Song is Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of California, Riverside, where he directs the Song Research Group. His laboratory specializes in the structural biology of epigenetics, employing multidisciplinary structural and biochemical approaches such as X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, single-molecule FRET, and NMR spectroscopy to investigate the mechanistic basis of cancer epigenetics. This includes chromatin modifications essential for gene regulation and cell development, with a focus on DNA methyltransferases like DNMT3A, DNMT3C, and DIM2. Song obtained his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002 under Professor John L. Markley, where his doctoral work centered on protein structure-function relationships using NMR spectroscopy. He conducted postdoctoral research from 2007 to 2011 in Dr. Dinshaw J. Patel's laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Prior to his promotion to full professor in 2026, Song advanced through the faculty ranks at UC Riverside since joining as an assistant professor. He serves as Graduate Advisor for the Biochemistry Department and has chaired search committees. Notable awards include the Hellman Fellowship for research on enzymatic mechanisms of mammalian DNA methylation and the Regents' Faculty Fellowship from the University of California, Riverside. Key publications encompass the crystal structure of the DNMT3A-DNMT3L-DNA complex linked to acute myeloid leukemia (Nature, 2018), structural basis for flavivirus NS5-mediated STAT2 suppression relevant to Zika virus (Nature Communications, 2017), structure, mechanism, and inhibition of DNMT3A R882 mutations (Nature Communications, 2024), allosteric regulation of Neurospora DIM2-mediated DNA methylation (Nature Communications, 2024), and the structure of DNA methyltransferase DNMT3C (Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2024). With over 8,000 citations and an h-index of 46, Song's contributions have advanced therapeutic strategies for epigenetic dysregulation in cancer and viral infections. He has presented seminars on DNA methylation mechanisms.