Feng Zhang

Feng Zhang
Born (1982-10-22) October 22, 1982
Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China
Nationality American
Fields Neuroscience, Bioengineering
Institutions MIT, Broad Institute
Alma mater Harvard University, Stanford University
Academic advisors Karl Deisseroth
Known for Optogenetics, CRISPR
Notable awards Alan T. Waterman Award
National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award
Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize
Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine
Tsuneko & Reiji Okazaki Award
Canada Gairdner International Award
Tang Prize
Website
zlab.mit.edu, genome-engineering.org, Broad Institute

Feng Zhang (Chinese: 张锋, pinyin: Zhang1 Feng1, born October 22, 1982) is the W. M. Keck Career Development Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also has appointments with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (where he is a core member) and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. He is most well known for playing a central role in the development of optogenetics and CRISPR technologies.

Early Life and Education

Zhang was born in China in 1982 and given the name 锋 (Feng) which means "point of a spear; edge of a tool; vanguard". Both of his parents were computer programmers in China. At age 11, he moved to Iowa with his mother (his father was not able to join them for several years).[1] He attended Theodore Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, graduating in 2000. In 1999 he attended the acclaimed Research Science Institute at MIT, and in 2000 he won 3rd Place in the Intel Science Talent Search. He earned his A.B. in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard University in 2004 where he worked with Xiaowei Zhuang.[2] He then received his Ph.D. in chemistry and bioengineering from Stanford University in 2009 under the guidance of Karl Deisseroth where he developed the technologies behind optogenetics with Edward Boyden.[3][4] He served as an independent Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows.[5][6]

Research

Zhang's lab is focused on using synthetic biology to develop technologies for genome and epigenome engineering to study neurobiology. As a postdoc, he began work on using TAL effectors to control gene transcription.[6]

Based on previous work by the Sylvain Moineau Lab,[7] Dr. Zhang began work to harness and optimize the CRISPR system to work in human cells in 2011.[8] While Zhang's group was optimizing the Cas9 system in human cells, the collaborating groups of Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna reported a biochemical characterization of the CRISPR-Cas9 system, including the design of a single, chimeric guide RNA (sgRNA) capable of facilitating cleavage of DNA using purified Cas9 protein and sgRNA.[9] Zhang's group further optimized this Doudna/Charpentier sgRNA design for expression in mammalian cells and subsequently reported the first application of Cas9 for genome editing in human cells the following year.[10][11]

Honors

Zhang is a recipient of the NIH Pioneer Award and a Searle Scholar. He was named one of MIT Technology Reviews's TR35[12] in 2013. His work on optogenetics and CRISPR has been recognized by a number of awards including: the 2012 Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize (for optogenetics, shared with Boyden and Deisseroth;[13] the 2014 Alan T. Waterman Award (for optogenetics and CRISPR-Cas9), the National Science Foundation's highest honor that annually recognizes an outstanding researcher under the age of 35;[14] the 2014 Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine (for CRISPR-Cas9, shared with Doudna and Charpentier),[15] and the 2014 Young Investigator Award from the Society for Neuroscience (for optogenetics and CRISPR-Cas9) [16] and 2015 Tsuneko & Reiji Okazaki Award (Nagoya University) and the 2016 Canada Gairdner International Award (for CRISPR-Cas9, shared with Doudna and Charpentier).[17] and 2016 Tang Prize[18]

References

  1. ↑ Begley, Sharon (November 6, 2015). "Meet one of the world's most groundbreaking scientists". Stat. Retrieved November 7, 2015.
  2. ↑ "Zhuang Research Lab". Retrieved 2016-01-07.
  3. ↑ Boyden, Edward S; Zhang, Feng; Bamberg, Ernst; Nagel, Georg; Deisseroth, Karl (14 August 2005). "Millisecond-timescale, genetically targeted optical control of neural activity". Nature Neuroscience. 8 (9): 1263–1268. doi:10.1038/nn1525. PMID 16116447.
  4. ↑ Zhang, Feng; Wang, Li-Ping; Brauner, Martin; Liewald, Jana F.; Kay, Kenneth; Watzke, Natalie; Wood, Phillip G.; Bamberg, Ernst; Nagel, Georg; Gottschalk, Alexander; Deisseroth, Karl (5 April 2007). "Multimodal fast optical interrogation of neural circuitry". Nature. 446 (7136): 633–639. doi:10.1038/nature05744. PMID 17410168.
  5. ↑ "Feng Zhang, Ph.D.". Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  6. 1 2 Zhang, Feng; Cong, Le; Lodato, Simona; Kosuri, Sriram; Church, George M; Arlotta, Paola (19 January 2011). "Efficient construction of sequence-specific TAL effectors for modulating mammalian transcription". Nature Biotechnology. 29 (2): 149–153. doi:10.1038/nbt.1775. PMC 3084533Freely accessible. PMID 21248753.
  7. ↑ Garneau, Josiane E.; Dupuis, Marie-Ève; Villion, Manuela; Romero, Dennis A.; Barrangou, Rodolphe; Boyaval, Patrick; Fremaux, Christophe; Horvath, Philippe; Magadán, Alfonso H.; Moineau, Sylvain (4 November 2010). "The CRISPR/Cas bacterial immune system cleaves bacteriophage and plasmid DNA". Nature. 468 (7320): 67–71. doi:10.1038/nature09523. PMID 21048762.
  8. ↑ "Project Spotlight: CRISPR". Retrieved 29 October 2015.
  9. ↑ Jinek, Martin; Chylinski, Krzysztof; Fonfara, Ines; Hauer, Michael; Doudna, Jennifer A.; Charpentier, Emmanuelle (August 2012). "A Programmable Dual-RNA Guided DNA Endonuclease in Adaptive Bacterial Immunity". Science. 337: 816–821. doi:10.1126/science.1225829. PMID 22745249. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
  10. ↑ Cong, L.; Ran, F. A.; Cox, D.; Lin, S.; Barretto, R.; Habib, N.; Hsu, P. D.; Wu, X.; Jiang, W.; Marraffini, L. A.; Zhang, F. (3 January 2013). "Multiplex Genome Engineering Using CRISPR/Cas Systems". Science. 339 (6121): 819–823. doi:10.1126/science.1231143. PMC 3795411Freely accessible. PMID 23287718.
  11. ↑ Hsu, Patrick D; Scott, David A; Weinstein, Joshua A; Ran, F Ann; Konermann, Silvana; Agarwala, Vineeta; Li, Yinqing; Fine, Eli J; Wu, Xuebing; Shalem, Ophir; Cradick, Thomas J; Marraffini, Luciano A; Bao, Gang; Zhang, Feng (21 July 2013). "DNA targeting specificity of RNA-guided Cas9 nucleases". Nature Biotechnology. 31 (9): 827–832. doi:10.1038/nbt.2647. PMID 23873081.
  12. ↑ Rotman, David. "Genomic research may finally help dispel the ignorance shrouding many types of mental illness". Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  13. ↑ "Stanford and MIT scientists win Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize". Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  14. ↑ "Alan T. Waterman Award Recipients, 1976 - present". Retrieved 20 September 2014.
  15. ↑ "Current winners of the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award". Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  16. ↑ "Feng Zhang, Diana Bautista Receive Young Investigator Award". Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  17. ↑ "Canada Gairdner International Award". Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  18. ↑ Tang Prize Foundation>>Laureates>>Biopharmaceutical Science>>2016 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science
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