Research Focus

Immuno-protective Mechanisms and Novel Therapeutic Strategies for Major and Emerging Infectious Diseases: 

(1) Characterization of tissue-specific microenvironment in infected organs at single-cell resolution; 

(2) Pathogen-host interaction mechanisms for the discovery of novel intervention targets; 

(3) Antibody-mediated anti-viral mechanisms for development of therapeutic antibody drug; 

(4) Decoding molecular signatures of antigen-specific T cells for vaccine design.

Major findings

(1) He first demonstrated that COVID-19 infection can elicit neutralizing antibodies in humans. Then he rapidly isolated the world's first and largest batch of monoclonal antibodies, and dissected their genetic characteristics, neutralizing activities and antiviral mechanisms. Based on these findings, he proposed a novel strategy for developing neutralizing antibody cocktails targeting different epitopes and total plasma antibodies as optimal biomarkers for early diagnosis of COVID-19. Then he collaboratively developed the first approved therapeutic neutralizing antibody drug against COVID-19 in China and the world’s first double-antigen sandwich assay kit for total antibody detection of COVID-19, which won the  China’s Top Ten Advances in Medical Biotechnology.

(2) He characterized the first spatiotemporal atlas of the pulmonary microenvironment in COVID-19 patients at the single-cell resolution. He also collaboratively established the single-cell Viral-Track analysis method to differentiate virus-infected cells from by-stand cells, and therefore revealing the molecular mechanisms underlying severe COVID-19 mediated by RIPK1 and potential intervention targets.

(3) He systemic elucidated the mechanisms of T cell exhaustion mediated  virus persistence and inflammation-driven disease severity in HIV and HBV infections. He also proposed a novel functional cure strategy integrating neutralizing antibodies with virus-specific T cells.

2013.09-2014.09 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Postdoctoral

2009.09-2010.03 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Visiting Scholar

2002.08-2005.07, Military Medical Science Academy, M.D.

1999.08-2002.07, Air Force Medical University, M.M.

1994.08-1999.07：Air Force Medical University, B.S.

He is the recipient of the Special Allowance from the State Council of China (2024), the recipient of WuXi AppTec Life Chemistry Research Award(2024)，the recipient of National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (2020), the recipient of National Innovation Medal(2020) and National Outstanding Young and Middle-aged Expert with Outstanding Contributions(2017). He is Project Lead of the National Major Infectious Disease Program and Key R&D Program，the Vice Chairperson of the Infection Immunization Branch of Chinese Society for Immunology and the Hepatology Committee of Chinese Research Hospital Association. He is also honored with the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award (Second Class), Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award (Grand Prize), and Chinese Medical Science and Technology Award, et al.

#共同第一作者，*共同通讯作者

1) Ju B#, Zhang Q#, Ge S#, Wang R, Yu J, Shan S, Zhou B, Song S, Tang X, Yu J, Ge J, Lan J, Yuan J, Wang H, Zhao J, Zhang S, Wang Y, Shi X, Liu L, Wang X*, Zhang Z*, Zhang L*. Human neutralizing antibodies elicited by SARS-CoV-2 infection. Nature, 2020, 584(7819): 115-119.

2) Bost P#, Giladi A#, Liu Y#, Bendjelal Y, Xu G, David E, Blecher-Gonen R, Cohen M, Medaglia C, Zhang S, Schwikowski B*, Zhang Z*, Amit I*. Host-viral infection maps reveal signatures of severe COVID-19 patients. Cell,2020, 181(7):1475-1488.

3) Liao M#, Liu Y#, Yuan J#, Wen Y, Xu G, Zhao J, Cheng L, Li J, Wang X, Wang F, Liu L*, Ido A*, Zhang S*, Zhang Z*. Single-cell landscape of bronchoalveolar immune cells in patients with COVID-19. Nat Med, 2020, 26(6):842-844.

4) Zhao J#, Yuan Q#, Wang H#, Liu W#, Liao X#, Su Y#, Wang X, Yuan J, Li T, Li J, Qian S, Hong C, Wang F, Liu Y, Wang Z, He Q, Li Z, He B, Zhang T, Ge S*, Liu L*, Zhang J*, Xia N, Zhang Z*. Antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 in patients of novel coronavirus disease 2019. Clin Infect Dis,2020, 71(16): 2027-2034.

5) Zhang Q#, Ju B#, Ge J#, Chan FW#, Cheng L#, Wang R#, Huang W#, Fang M, Chen P, Zhou B, Song S, Shan S, Yan B, Zhang S, Ge X, Yu J, Zhao J, Wang H, Liu L, Lv Q, Fu L, Shi X, Yuen KY, Liu L, Wang Y*, Chen Z*, Zhang L*, Wang X*, Zhang Z*. Potent and protective IGHV3-53/3-66 public antibodies and their shared escape mutant on the spike of SARS-CoV-2. Nat Communications,2021, 12: 4210-4221.

6) Xu G#, Li Y#, Zhang S#, Peng H#, Wang Y#, Li D, Jin T, He Z, Tong Y, Qi C, Wu G, Dong K, Gou J, Liu Y, Xiao T, Qu J, LiL*, LiuL*, ZhaoP*, ZhangZ*,YuanJ*. SARS-CoV-2 promotes RIPK1 activation to facilitate viral propagation. Cell Res,2021, 31(12):1230-1243. 

7) Zhao J#, Zhang S#, Liu Y#, He X#, Qu M, Xu G, Wang H, Huang M, Pan J, Liu Z, Li Z, Liu L, Zhang Z*. Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals the heterogeneity of liver-resident immune cells in human. Cell Discov, 2020, 6:22. 

8) Tang X, Zhang S, Peng Q, Ling L, Shi H, Liu Y, Cheng L, Xu L, Cheng L, Chakrabarti LA, Chen Z, Wang H, Zhang Z*. Sustained IFN-I Stimulation Impairs MAIT Cell Responses to Bacteria by Inducing IL-10 during chronic HIV-1 Infection. Sci Adv, 2020,6(8): eaaz0374.

9) Zhang Z*#, Cheng L#, Zhao J#, Li G, Zhang L, Chen W, Nie W, Reszka-Blanco N, Wang FS*, Su L*. Plasmacytoid dendritic cells promote HIV-1-induced group-3 innate lymphoid cell depletion. J Clin Invest, 2015, 125(9): 3692-3703.