Jing Zhang, Ph.D.

Dr. Jing Zhang is a computational biologist whose research integrates genomics, protein science, structural biology, and high-throughput approaches to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying disease. Her previous research has focused on developing and applying computational methods to large-scale genomic and protein datasets to investigate protein function, structure, evolution, and molecular interactions, with an emphasis on generating experimentally testable hypotheses. Moving forward, she aims to establish experimental pipelines and foster collaborations with experimental biologists to validate computational predictions, uncover underlying biological mechanisms, and translate in silico discoveries into experimentally supported biological insights.

Dr. Zhang's research program focuses on two major areas: bacterial pathogenesis and cancer therapeutics. In bacterial pathogenesis, she seeks to understand how genomic and protein-level variation shapes bacterial virulence, including the molecular mechanisms underlying pathogenicity, tissue invasion, and adaptation. By integrating comparative genomics, functional genomics, high-throughput genetic screening, and protein structure and interaction analyses, she aims to systematically discover previously uncharacterized virulence factors and mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis.

In cancer research, Dr. Zhang aims to discover new therapeutic vulnerabilities and develop strategies to target proteins and molecular mechanisms that remain difficult to address with conventional approaches. She aims to combine large-scale functional and genomic data with protein structure, molecular interactions, and protein engineering to identify therapeutic targets and develop new approaches for cancer treatment.

Across these two research directions, Dr. Zhang aims to bridge large-scale computational discovery with mechanistic and experimental biology, ultimately translating fundamental biological insights into new strategies for preventing and treating human disease.