ZHANG LAB

Dr. Zhang earned his PhD in Drug Design and Medicinal Chemistry from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he focused on organic chemistry and drug discovery for type 2 diabetes. He expanded into biology during his first postdoc training at the University of Colorado, where he worked on Toll-like receptors and innate immunity. During this time, he developed a deep passion for aging research, as he came to recognize aging as the greatest risk factor and root cause of many chronic and complex diseases. Motivated by this realization, he pursued a second postdoctoral fellowship in aging research in the lab of Dr. Paul Robbins at the Scripps Research Institute, which later relocated to the University of Minnesota to establish the aging research center. There, he was promoted to Research Assistant Professor and served as the Manager of the Drug Discovery Core. His work focused on identifying and developing senotherapeutics, drugs that selectively target senescent cells, through drug screening, drug design, and machine learning. He also investigated age-associated signaling pathways through both genetic and pharmacological approaches. 

Dr. Zhang brings a uniquely interdisciplinary background across chemistry, biology, and computational science. At the University of Georgia, his lab focuses on geroscience-guided drug discovery aimed at developing therapeutic interventions that target key hallmarks of aging, such as cellular senescence, chronic inflammation, and genomic instability, with the goal of extending healthspan and promoting healthy longevity.

When he’s not trying to solve the mysteries of aging, he enjoys hiking, cooking, fishing, science fiction, and treadmill running with his cats, unofficial longevity trial participants (currently n = 3).