Speaker: Prof. Ru-gang Zhang (The Wistar Institute, University of Pennsylvania)　  　　

Title：Epigenetics, cancer and cellular senescence

Time: July 12 (Wednesday) 2017, 10:00am

Venue: Laboratory of Southwestern Biodiversity, 1st floor conference room (1-24-26)

Everyone is welcome! 

Introduction of the speaker:

　　Dr. Zhang received his Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2002. He did his post-doctoral training at the Institute for Cancer Research, Fox Chase Cancer Center, where he became an Assistant Professor in 2008. Zhang joined The Wistar Institute as an Associate Professor in 2012 and promoted to a Full Professor in 2015. He is also an adjunct Professor at University of Pennsylvania.  

　　The Zhang laboratory studies the mechanisms that underlie how normal mammalian cells age and how tumor cells evade the process and become transformed. In particular, his laboratory is interested in how alterations in epigenetics lead to the evasion of the aging process during tumor development. Understanding these mechanisms could lead to novel strategies for developing cancer therapeutics by forcing tumor cells into the aging process. His laboratory primarily focuses on ovarian cancer, which ranks first as the cause of death for gynecological cancers in the developed world.  

　　Dr. Zhang is an international leader in cancer epigenetic therapy, ovarian cancer biology and molecular basis of cellular senescence. This is reflected by his extensive publications in top-tier peer reviewed journals, numerous invitations to speak at national and international meetings, serving as scientific reviewers for many highly regarded funding agencies such as United States National Institutes of Health, United Kingdom MRC and CRUK, Swiss Cancer League and German Research Foundation.  

　　State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution

07-04-2017