Dr Yi Zhang

Harvard Medical School, USA

Yi Zhang is a Fred Rosen Chair Professor of the Department of Genetics and Department of Pediatrics of the Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. His major interest has been the epigenetic basis of gene expression in embryonic development, stem cell reprogramming and aging, as well as reward-related brain learning and memory. He is also interested in how dysregulation of epigenetic enzymes contributes to various human diseases including cancer and drug addiction.

Dr. Zhang has made fundamental contributions to the epigenetics field through systematic identifying and characterizing chromatin modifying enzymes, including the nucleosome remodeling and deacetylase (NuRD) complex, histone methyltransferases (e.g. Ezh2/PRC2, Dot1L), the JmjC-containing histone demethylases, histone H2A ubiquitin E3 ligase PRC1, and the TET family of 5-methylcytosine dioxygenases. In addition to identifying these critical epigenetic enzymes, he contributed in elucidation the mechanisms underlying classic epigenetic phenomena, including Polycomb silencing, genomic imprinting, and X-chromosome inactivation. Furthermore, his lab has greatly improved the animal cloning technology by identifying and overcoming two of the most important epigenetic barriers of cloning, as well as helped in developing PRC2/EZH2 inhibitor tazemetostat, an FDA approved drug for epithliod sarcoma and follicular lymphoma. Dr. Zhang was named a Top 10 author of high impact papers in Genetics and Molecular Biology (2002-2006), and one of the most influential scientists in the world by ScienceWatch. He has published over 190 high impact papers with more than 90,000 citations and an H-index of 124.