Rate My Professor Jikui Song

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.