Assistant Professor, RNA Therapeutics Institute, Gene Therapy Center, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biotechnology
Email: Guocai.Zhong@umassmed.edu
Guocai received his PhD in Pathobiology in 2009, after a joint PhD training in Professor Wenhui Li's Lab at the National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS), an HHMI-style research institute in Beijing, China. He then worked as a postdoc in the Li Lab at NIBS and contributed (equal first author) to the discovery of sodium taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide (NTCP) as a receptor for HBV and HDV infection. This discovery has been acknowledged as a milestone breakthrough in HBV research in the past three decades and has been honored by the 2021 Baruch S. Blumberg Prize, the highest honor for hepatitis B research, and the 2022 Future Science Prize in the Life Science category. He then joined Professor Michael Farzan’s lab at the Scripps Research Institute and initiated RNA switch engineering studies -- a new research direction in the Farzan lab. Here, he completed a series of first and corresponding-author studies that moved artificial RNA switches from working efficiently in vitro to now functioning with wide dynamic ranges in animals. In late 2019, Guocai started his independent group at Shenzhen Bay Laboratory and Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School in Shenzhen, China. In summer 2022, he joined the RNA Therapeutics Institute and Horae Gene Therapy Center at UMass Chan Medical School. Since established in late 2019, Zhong Lab has been focusing on RNA switch engineering and regulatable gene therapy development.
Sr. Research Scientist, Lab Manager
Haimin got her medical degree in 2007 and then received a 2-year residency training in China. She then switched her career path to research. She was a postdoc associate at the Scripps Research Institute, Florida campus, and then joined Zhong Lab in 2019 since the lab's establishment.
Visiting Graduate Student
Xiaojuan is a PhD student at Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China. She joined Zhong Lab since the lab's establishment in 2019, initially at Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, then moved with the lab as a visiting student to UMass Chan Medical School (3/20/2023-).
Chengzhi Du, PhDPostdoctoral Associate
Chengzhi received his PhD degree in Cancer Biology in 2019 from Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. Since then, he joined Zhong Lab as a Postdoctoral Associate, initially at Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, then moved with the lab to UMass Chan Medical School (5/20/2023-).
Postdoctoral Associate
Mengjia was a graduate student in Zhong Lab. She joined the lab in late 2019 and received her PhD degree in Chemical Genomics in July 2023 from Peking University, China. As the lab then moved to UMass Chan Medical School, she rejoined the lab at UMass Med as a Postdoctoral Associate (10/16/2023-).
Postdoctoral Associate
Yao received her PhD degree in Veterinary Medicine in June 2022 from South China Agricultural University, China. She recently joined us as a Postdoctoral Associate (1/8/2024-).
Wei Zhan. UMass Chan graduate student previously rotated in the Zhong lab in 2023.
Madhu Suresh. Former Research Associate (2023-2023); now PhD student at the University of Freiburg, Germany.
Yujun Li, PhD. Former Associate Investigator (2020-2022); now Associate Professor and Co-Director of BSL-3 Laboratory at Shenzhen University Medical School, Shenzhen, China.
Hong Pan, PhD. Former postdoc (2020-2022); now Assistant Investigator at Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China.
Weitong Yao, PhD. Former postdoc (2020-2022); now Assistant Investigator at Hubei Jiangxia Laboratory, Wuhan, China.
He Zhang. Former graduate student at Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School (2021-2022); now graduate student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
Danting Ma. Former Research Assistant (2019-2022); now graduate student at Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China.
Xiaomei Fu. Former Research Assistant (2020-2022); now Scientist at ImmVira Co., Ltd, China.
Yifei Wang. Former Research Assistant (2019-2021); now graduate student at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Paris, France.
Qin Zou. Former Research Assistant (2019-2020); now in industry.