Dr. Fung received his Ph.D. studying how bacteriophages package their DNA using a combination of X-ray crystallography, single-particle cryo-EM, NMR spectroscopy and TIRF microscopy in the labs of Dr. Fred Antson and Dr. Christoph Baumann at the University of York, UK, supported by a Wellcome Trust fellowship. As a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Julia Mahamid and Dr. Christoph Mueller at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany, Dr. Fung studied eukaryotic gene transcription using single-particle cryo-EM and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET). Driven by a need for better technology, he co-developed tools for correlative and automated focused ion beam (FIB) milling and labeling strategies for protein localization, funded by an EMBL Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Fellowship and a DFG Priority Program Independence Accelerator Award. In his independent lab, Dr. Fung continues to explore the mechanistic detail of protein-nucleic acid systems in cells by combining and developing structural cell biology tools. The lab currently focuses on understanding how the 3-D structure of human chromatin impacts gene expression and development.

The 3D structure of chromatin strongly influences a cell's gene program, fate and function. Our lab uses cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) to visualize native chromatin inside cells and quantitatively analyze their structural changes during cellular differentiation. Combined with single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and biophysical analysis of key chromatin complexes, we seek to uncover the molecular basis of gene activation and repression central to development. Keeping in step with biology, we develop correlative imaging and labelling approaches to enable multi-scale targeted studies of cellular processes by light and electron microscopy.