Chengcheng (Alec) Zhang, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Physiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center

Speaker

Dr. Chengcheng (Alec) Zhang, Morton H. Sanger Professorship in Oncology and Michael L. Rosenberg Scholar for Biomedical Research at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, earned his B.S. degree from University of Science and Technology of China in 1992 and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1999. He received his postdoctoral training under the mentorship of Dr. Harvey Lodish at Whitehead Institute/MIT, where he initiated several projects on hematopoietic stem cells and cancer research. Dr. Zhang established his independent lab at UT Southwestern Medical Center in 2007.

His laboratory research focuses on the biology of immune inhibitory receptors including leukocyte Ig-like receptor subfamily B (LILRB) in cancer immunology and hematopoietic cells. He is also accustomed to working at the intersection of basic research and its clinical applications; anti-LILRB2 and anti-LILRB4 blocking antibodies discovered by his team/collaborators are in clinical trials for treatment of myeloid leukemia and solid cancers. He published 114 peer-reviewed publications in hematopoietic and cancer research fields. He was a recipient of several awards, including American Society of Hematology Junior Faculty Scholar Award, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Scholar Award, and Royan International Research Award. He has trained 8 graduate students and 27 post-doctoral researchers. Many of his former postdoc trainees acquired faculty positions.