Time: Thursday, Dec. 17th 15:00-16:00
Location: Room 143, Biology New Building

Dr. Hong Zhang is an Investigator in the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He graduated from Albert Einstein College of Medicine and had his postdoc training in the MGH Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School. Zhang's lab demonstrated that during C. el-egans embryogenesis, specialized protein aggregates, called PGL granules, are removed by autophagy in somatic cells. Using this as a model, his lab performed the first systematic genetic screens for novel autophagy genes in higher eukaryotes, resulting in identification of a set of metazoan-specific autophagy genes, known as epg genes. Recently, his lab uncovered that phase separation and transition control autophagic degradation of protein aggregates. The awards he has won in recent years include the Second Prize of The State Natural Science Award(2019), Outstanding Achievement Award of the Chinese Society for Cell Biology(2019), FVIL Scholar(2018),the 6th CC.Tan(Jia- Zhen Tan) Life science Award(2013), National Outstanding Young Scientist Award (2012) and HHMI International Early Career Scientist Award(2012). Dr. Hong Zhang is an Associate Editor for Autophagy and is also on the Editorial Board for Trends in Biochemical Sciences, Journal of Cell Biology, eLife, EMBO reports, JCS and Cell Death& differentiation.