Yaojun Tong

Tenure-track Associate Professor

  • Tel: +86-21-34204266
  • Email: yaojun.tong@sjtu.edu.cn
  • Address: Room 3-409, Biopharmacy Building, Dongchuan Road 800, Minhang District, Shanghai 200240, China
  • Welcome to Tong Lab, where we're committed to advancing synthetic biology tools for the enhanced design and creation of intelligent microbial cell factories. We aim to revolutionize the production of vital bioactive compounds, the breakdown of harmful pollutants, and the treatment of diverse diseases. Joining hands, make a greener world.

Education and Research Experience

  • 2020.12-present, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tenure-track Associate Professor.
  • 2016.02-2020.12, The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Technical University of Denmark. Researcher (Assistant Professor)
  • 2013.09-2016.02, The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Technical University of Denmark. Postdoc, working with Prof. Sang Yup Lee, and Prof. Tilmann Weber.
  • 2008.09-2013.09, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, PhD.
  • 2004.09-2008.06, University of Science and Technology, Beijing, BSc.

Research Interests

1. Advanced synthetic biology tools development for microbes.

CRISPR-based genome editing toolkit, tuneable regulation platform of transcription and translation, etc.

2. Intelligent microbial cell factory design and construction.

Design and construct microbial chassis strains for bio-production, bio-remediation, and bio-therapy.

3. Sociomicrobiology study to enable next generation biotechnology.

Study the individual behavior of microbes within a colonized society, investigating possibilities of developing new biotechnology.

Selected Publications

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    Chia, N., Lee, S.Y.* Tong, Y.*, Optogenetic tools for microbial synthetic biology. Biotechnol. Adv. 59, 107953 (2022).

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    Tong, Y.*, Jørgensen, T.S., Whitford, C.M., Weber, T.*, Lee, S.Y.* A versatile genetic engineering toolkit for E. coli based on CRISPR-prime editing. Nature Communications. 12, 5206 (2021).

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    Tong, Y.*, #, Zhang, J.#, Wang, L., Wang, Q., Huang, H., Chen, X., Zhang, Q., Li, H., Sun, N., Liu, G., Zhang, B., Song, F., Alterovitz, G., Dai, H.*, Zhang, L.* Hyper-synergistic antifungal activity of rapamycin and peptide-like compounds against Candida albicans orthogonally via Tor1 kinase. ACS Infectious Diseases. 7, 2826-2835. (2021).

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    Tong, Y.*, #, Zhang, J.#, Sun, N. #, Wang, X. #, Wei, Q., Zhang, Y., Huang, R., Pu, Y., Dai, H., Ren, B., Pei, G., Song, F., Zhu, G., Wang, X., Xia, X., Chen, X., Jiang, L., Zhang, J., Ouyang, L., Zhang, B., Jiang, Y., Liu, X., Calderone, R., Bai, F.*, Zhang, L.*, Alterovitz, G. Berberine reverses multidrug resistance in Candida albicans by hijacking the drug efflux pump Mdr1p. Science Bulletin. 66, 1895-1905. (2021).

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    Tong, Y.*, #, Zhang, J.#, Sun, N. #, Wang, X. #, Wei, Q., Zhang, Y., Huang, R., Pu, Y., Dai, H., Ren, B., Pei, G., Song, F., Zhu, G., Wang, X., Xia, X., Chen, X., Jiang, L., Zhang, J., Ouyang, L., Zhang, B., Jiang, Y., Liu, X., Calderone, R., Bai, F.*, Zhang, L.*, Alterovitz, G. Berberine reverses multidrug resistance in Candida albicans by hijacking the drug efflux pump Mdr1p. Science Bulletin. 66, 1895-1905. (2021).

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    Tong, Y., Whitford, C. M., Blin, K., Jørgensen, T. S., Weber, T.*, Lee, S. Y.* CRISPR-Cas9-based, CRISPRi, and CRISPR-BEST-mediated genetic manipulation in streptomycetes. Nature Protocols. 15, 2470-2502. (2020).

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    Tong, Y.*, Deng, Z.*, An aurora of natural products-based drug discovery is coming. Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology. 5, 92-96 (2020).

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    Tong, Y., Whitford, C. M., Robertsen, H. L., Blin, K., Jørgensen, T. S., Klitgaard, A. K., Weber, T.*, Lee, S. Y.* Highly efficient DSB-free base editing for streptomycetes with CRISPR-BEST. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 116, 20366-20375 (2019).

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    Tong, Y., Weber, T.*, Lee, S. Y.* CRISPR/Cas-based genome engineering in natural product discovery. Nat. Prod. Rep. 36, 1262-1280 (2019). Journal cover paper. 

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    Tong, Y.*,#, Liu, M.#, Zhang, Y., Liu, X., Huang, R., Song, F., Dai, H., Ren, B., Sun, N., Pei, G., Bian, J., Jia, X-M., Huang, G., Zhou, X., Li, S., Zhang, B., Fukuda, T., Tomoda, H.,Ōmura, S., Cannon, R.D., Calderone, R., Zhang, L.* Beauvericin counteracted multi-drug resistant Candida albicans by blocking ABC transporters. Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology. 1, 158-168. (2016).

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    Tong, Y., Charusanti, P., Zhang, L., Weber, T.*, Lee, S. Y.* CRISPR-Cas9 Based Engineering of Actinomycetal Genomes. ACS Synth. Biol. 4, 1020-1029 (2015). Journal cover paper. ESI highly cited paper.

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