Dr. Yang Zhang is a distinguished computational biologist and leading authority in protein structure prediction and computational biochemistry. He currently serves as Professor of Biochemistry at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Professor of Computer Science at the School of Computing, National University of Singapore, positions he has held since 2023. Prior to his appointment at NUS, Dr. Zhang was a Professor in the Department of Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics, the Department of Biological Chemistry, and the Department of Macromolecular Science & Engineering at the University of Michigan from 2009 to 2022. His academic journey began with foundational postdoctoral training, establishing the groundwork for his transformative contributions to computational structural biology.
Dr. Zhang's pioneering development of the I-TASSER algorithm has revolutionized the field of protein structure prediction, earning the distinction of being ranked as the No. 1 most accurate method in the community-wide CASP experiments nine consecutive times since 2006. His laboratory was among the first globally to initiate studies on deep machine-learning based protein and RNA structure predictions, catalyzing a paradigm shift that has brought revolutionary impact across multiple domains of life science research. The I-TASSER platform, available at zhanggroup.org, has become an indispensable resource for researchers worldwide, with applications spanning drug discovery, protein engineering, and functional annotation of genomes. His highly cited publications have established fundamental methodologies that continue to shape the computational approaches used in structural bioinformatics laboratories across the globe.
Beyond his technical contributions, Dr. Zhang has been recognized as a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher six times since 2015, underscoring his exceptional influence in the scientific community. He has received prestigious awards including the Alfred P Sloan Award and the US National Science Foundation CAREER Award, reflecting both the innovative nature and broad impact of his work. Currently, his research focuses on advancing AI-based approaches for protein and RNA structure prediction, de novo protein and peptide design, and structure-based protein function analysis. As computational methods increasingly transform biological discovery, Dr. Zhang's ongoing work continues to push the boundaries of what is possible in understanding the molecular machinery of life, with profound implications for biomedical research and therapeutic development.
