Zhimin has developed a highly parallel Protein-Protein interaction Sequencing (PPiSeq) platform for characterization of dynamic Protein-Protein Interactions (PPIs) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The PPiSeq platform combines the murine dihydrofolate reductase protein fragment complementation assay, a double barcoding system, pooled cell growth, time-course barcode sequencing, and quantitative fitness measurements. Using this platform he is working on the quantification of ~1.6 million protein-protein pairs in each of ten environments with the aim to identify new PPIs that are specific to non-standard environments and reveal large-scale changes in the protein interactome across environments.
He has also built a DNA-barcode based lineage tracking system in Candida glabrata that is capable of tracking evolutionary dynamics of ~2 million lineages simultaneously. By evolving this barcoded C. glabrata population in a synthetic minimal media with a low-concentration of caspofungin, a front-line antifungal, he aims to identify mutations conferring different levels of resistance to caspofungin. During his work in China, he mainly focused on evaluating the immunotoxicity and reproductive toxicity of gold nanoparticles, which have triggered an emerging interest in the biomedical field, in mice and characterizing the underlying molecular mechanisms through tissue culture. His overarching interest is to understand biological systems using quantitative methods.