Zhejiang University
Professor Zhiying Wu is a Qiushi Distinguished Professor at Zhejiang University and Director of the Department of Medical Genetics and Rare Disease Center at the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine. She received her M.D. from Fujian Medical University, her Ph.D. in Neurology from Tongji Medical University, and completed postdoctoral training at Columbia University, USA.
Professor Wu has devoted more than 30 years to the study of rare and neurogenetic disorders, with research focusing on the genetic mechanisms and precision diagnosis and treatment of neurogenetic, rare, and neurodegenerative diseases. She has led the discovery of four disease-causing genes—PRRT2, TMEM151A, COX20, and SREBF2—which have become internationally recognized diagnostic markers for their respective disorders. As corresponding or senior corresponding author, she has published more than 170 SCI-indexed papers in leading journals, including Nature Genetics, Brain, Neurology, Movement Disorders, Molecular Neurodegeneration, Cell Reports, Cell Discovery, and The Innovation.
Professor Wu is a recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and currently leads a National Key Innovation Team under the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. She serves as Vice President of the Chinese Neuroscience Society and holds leadership positions in several national and provincial academic organizations in neurology, neurogenetics, and rare diseases. She has received numerous prestigious honors, including the State Council Special Government Allowance, the China Young Scientist Award, the China Young Women Scientists Award, the National Outstanding Science and Technology Worker Award, and the Outstanding Contribution Award for Chinese Neurologists.
Erasmus MC
Personal Statement
Effective Sept 1, 1985, I started my career in the lab of Jan Voogd in Rotterdam where I received my philosophical degree (PhD) in 1990 in medicine Cum Laude. Following my medical studies at the University of Amsterdam and University of Rotterdam I got my medical degree (MD) one year later, again Cum Laude. As a first-year PhD-student at my first international lecture in Turin, Italy, I surprised the international community by showing a new technology, by which one could demonstrate for the first time simultaneously the connectivity of nerve fibers and the identity of their neurotransmitters. This new technology led to numerous discoveries of new functional connections in the brain. Together with two other major technical developments in the field of neuro-anatomy that I introduced in my thesis, I provided a basis for deciphering neural networks at the ultrastructural level. After obtaining my PhD, I received the prestigious Huygens Science Award – fellowship from the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts & Sciences (KNAW), which allowed me to move to New York (Rodolfo Llinas) and enter the field of neurophysiology. Here, I unraveled the circuitry of the vestibulocerebellum underlying eye movement control and I showed that this part of the brain generates predictions required for motor learning. In the meantime, I discovered a new cell organelle, the dendritic lamellar body, which is widely distributed in the brain and implicated in functional control of electrical synapses, forming one of the main substrates of communication between neurons in the nervous system. My desire to use transgenics for elucidating brain function inspired me to move, once again, to another field, the field of molecular biology (Frank Grosveld). In this field I discovered new genes, one of which was CYLN2, which turned out to be implicated in Williams Syndrome; today, diagnostic screens for translocations of this gene are used worldwide. In 1998 I was invited to start up the Dept. of Neuroscience that I have been chairing since. Over the past decades the Dept. of Neuroscience has flourished in that it gained about ten times more scientists and staff, and that many of the postdocs and faculty received important awards and fellowships. For example, in the VENI, VIDI and VICI program of NWO and ZonMw, the main Dutch grant agencies, my Dept. alone received more than 50 fellowships, of which more than 30% were ranked number 1 in the country in the fields of medicine and life sciences. My department was also the first of Erasmus MC and Erasmus University to receive a EURYI Award. More than 150 PhDs successfully defended their thesis and more than 15 young scientists already left the Dept. to become chair and/or full professor elsewhere. By participating actively in the lab, I have been trying to not only inspire my students to become successful, but to also receive personal awards and prestigious grants by myself. In 2001, I received the PIONIER Award of NWO and ZonMW, being ranked number 1 of the medical scientists in the Netherlands. In 2006, I received personally from Her Majesty, Queen Beatrix, the so-called Beatrix Award, which was given to the Dutch scientist with the best performance in the field of neuroscience over the 50-year period from 1956 to 2006. In 2007 I became, next to being chairman at Erasmus MC, co-director of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience to determine its new scientific focus and start up a new group on cerebellar cognition. In 2011 I received an ERC-Adv grant and in 2014 I was elected as a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts & Sciences. In 2018 I received the international Casella Prize in Italy for my work on motor planning. I obtained many grants from many national and international science agencies such as NWO, ZonMw, FES, HFSP, EU, LSH, Medical Delta and KNAW, and I have been presiding over national and international consortia governing multimillion-Euro programs such as the NeuroBSIK Mouse Phenomics and NeuroBasic Pharma Phenomics programs for valorization of animal models for brain disorders and pharmaceutical products in the Netherlands, the European SENSOPAC program for Bio-Inspired networks supporting Robotics control, an NWO-Groot investment grant on a national Center for functional Ultrasound Brain-imaging at Erasmus MC (CUBE), as well as LSH-INTENSE and NWO-Gravitation grants on Brain-Machine-Interfacing. Many of the technologies I developed for academic neuroscience research have become commercially available via Neurasmus BV or BlinkLab, the two companies that I founded. I presented well over 250 international lectures, published 3 books on cerebellar function, and I wrote over 400 papers in all disciplines of neuroscience ranging from molecular neurobiology up to computational modeling, Brain-Machine-Interfacing and Artificial Intelligence, as well as neuro-epidemiology, accumulating into well over 35.000 citations and an HR index above 100. These include papers in many major journals including Nature, Cell, Science, Nature Genetics, Nature Reviews, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Communications, Neuron, Cell Reports, eLife, New England Journal of Med, TINS, TICS, Brain, Current biology, PloS Biology, Annals of Neurol, JAMA, J Clin Invest, EMBO, Science Adv and PNAS. My research has led to unprecedented insights of how the brain, in particular the cerebellum, may control sensorimotor learning. Now it is my ambition to study how deficits in basic function of retinal circuits can explain eye movement disorders such as nystagmus, how the vestibulocerebellum can compensate for these deficits, and how we can prevent further decay, paving the way for a novel therapeutic design. As analyzed by ExpertScape (www.expertscape.com), De Zeeuw is currently ranked number 1 in the world for the field of cerebellum.
San Raffaele University
Flavia Valtorta studied Medicine at the University of Milan and trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of the Nobel laureate Paul Greengard at The Rockefeller University in New York. She holds board certifications in Anesthesiology and Intensive Care and in Psychotherapy.
She is currently Professor of Pharmacology and Vice Rector for International Affairs at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. Likewise, she is head of the Research Unit of Neuropsychopharmacology at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute. Previously, she was Member of the Adjunct Faculty at The Rockefeller University (New York), Director of the Division of Neuroscience at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute and President of the National Committee on Doping and Health Protection in Sports of the Italian Ministry of Health.
Flavia Valtorta has been working for all her academic career in neuroscience, contributing to the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms that underlie the phenomena of synaptic maturation and neurotransmitter release in health and disease. She has contributed a relevant body of information concerning some of the key molecules involved in these processes, whose mutations cause neurological or psychiatric disorders (synaptopathies).
University of California, San Francisco, UCSF
Dr. Louis Ptáček has used the tools of human genetics in the study of patients with an impressive range of human phenotypes. He pioneered the field of “Channelopathies” which encompasses a large group of episodic/electrical disorders of muscle, heart, and brain. Subsequently, his group has done extensive work in characterizing the functional consequences of disease causing mutations. In another line of work motivated by a family with an interesting phenotype, he embarked into the challenging field of behavioral genetics. He and his colleague, Ying-Hui Fu, study the genetics of human sleep phenotypes. Familial advanced sleep phase (FASP), is manifest as a lifelong trait of extremely early sleep times and early morning awakening (1 am – 4 am). Ptáček and Fu have gone on to characterize mutations in a growing list of genes that underlie the phenotype in ~15% of FASP families. Furthermore, they’ve gone on to model human mutations in Drosophila and mice. In vitro and in vivo experiments focused on regions harboring the human mutations has led to novel insights in fine tuning of circadian period regulation by phosphorylation and other post translational modifications. They have show an important effect in some of the human sleep mutations in increasing risk for migraine or metabolic disease and further show that Familial natural short sleep mutations are protective for neurodegeneration. He serves on a number editorial boards including Neurogenetics, eLife, and the Journal of Clinical Investigation. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Association of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Science of the USA.
University of Mons
Mario Manto is Neurologist, Professor of Neuroanatomy, Neurology and Pathophysiology of the Nervous System (UMons and HELB, Belgium). He is the founding Editor of The Cerebellum (Springer Nature) and current Editor of the Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation (BioMed Central). He is head of the Department of Neurology at Humani. He is author or editor of 15 books. His research focuses on the cerebellum and cerebellar disorders. He has received grants from the NIH, the EC, FNRS, FWO and others.
Yokohama City University
Cardiff University
Dr Tom Massey initially studied Biochemistry at Cambridge University in the UK before completing a PhD in the mechanisms of DNA repair at Oxford University. He then studied Medicine before specialising in Neurology. He currently holds a Clinician Scientist Fellowship from the Medical Research Council in the UK and is a Group Leader in the UK Dementia Research Institute. His research is focused on Huntington's disease and related conditions and draws on data and techniques from a wide range of life sciences, including clinical phenotyping, human genetics, stem cell biology, molecular assays and protein biochemistry. The overarching aim is to identify and prosecute new drug targets where there is currently none.
Westlake University
Kiryl Piatkevich is an Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Westlake University. Since early childhood, Dr. Piatkevich was fond of chemistry and pursuing his passion for science he enrolled in Lyceum of Belarussian State University at age of 15 to study chemistry. Following the graduation from the Lyceum, Dr. Piatkevich continued his education at Lomonosov Moscow State University while doing research in metalorganic, analytical, physical, and bio-organic chemistry. After receiving a Master of Science degree in Chemistry with honors, Dr. Piatkevich was accepted to a joint Ph.D. program between Moscow State University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York to work on the development of the innovative approaches for intravital imaging of small mammals. After receiving a Ph.D. in Chemistry, Dr. Piatkevich joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Postdoctoral Associate to do research in the Synthetic Neurobiology group led by Dr. Edward Boyden, a world-recognized pioneer in optogenetics and neuro-engineering. During postdoctoral training, he worked on novel methods of neural interfacing using synthetic biology and developed several new molecular technologies for observing neuronal activity in live behaving animals. Dr. Piatkevich was the first to perform the optical recording of neuronal activity with high temporal precision in major neuroscience model organism, including worms, fish, and mice. Starting in 2019, Dr. Piatkevich leads the Molecular Bioengineering Group in the School of Life Sciences (www.piatkevich-lab.com).
University College London
Dr. Viorica Chelban is a clinical academic at the University College London Queen Square Institute of Neurology and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. She specialises in rare neurogenetic and neurodegenerative disorders, with a strong focus on the discovery and translation of genetic and molecular mechanisms into clinical practice. Her research programme integrates genomics, fluid biomarkers, and deep clinical phenotyping to advance understanding of disease mechanisms, enable earlier and more precise diagnosis, and support patient stratification for clinical trials. She has a particular interest in paroxysmal and genetically mediated movement disorders and leads several national and international collaborative studies in this area. Dr Chelban plays a key role in coordinating multidisciplinary research initiatives, supervising doctoral and postgraduate researchers, and contributing to clinical trial development and biomarker validation efforts. She is committed to fostering international collaboration and advancing precision medicine approaches to improve outcomes for patients with rare neurological diseases.
Fujian Medical University
Wan-Jin Chen, Chief Physician, Professor, and Doctoral Supervisor. He currently serves as Vice President of Fujian Medical University, and Vice President of the First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University. He has conducted research in various areas related to neurogenetic diseases for about 25 years. As a clinical physician, he is deeply committed to integrating research with clinical practice, specializing in rare neurological diseases, neurogenetic disease, and cerebrovascular diseases. During his research, he has discovered 9 novel causative genes associated with rare neurogenetic disorders, and has published over 80 high-quality papers in renowned scientific journals, including NEJM, BMJ, Nature Genetics, Neuron, Cell Research, Natl Sci Rev, Brain, Annals of Neurology, Movement Disorders etc. He has been awarded 9 national-level grants, including the Outstanding Youth Program, Original Exploratory Program and Key Program from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and holds 17 authorized national invention patents.
Zhejiang University
Minxin Guan, Qiushi Chair Professor of Zhejiang University. He received his BSc from the Department of Biology, Hangzhou University in 1983, his PhD from the Australian National University, and completed postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology. He previously served as a Professor at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in the United States. He joined Zhejiang University in 2011, where he has held positions including Dean of the College of Life Sciences and Deputy Director of the Faculty of Medicine. He is currently Director of the Institute of Genetics and Director of the Center for Genetic Medicine, International School of Medicine.
His research focuses on basic and translational studies of inherited mitochondrial diseases, with particular emphasis on the genetic mechanisms and precision diagnosis and treatment of Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON). He led the establishment of domestic LHON pedigree resources and mitochondrial variant profiles, elucidated the modulatory mechanisms of mitochondrial and nuclear mitochondrial interactions on disease phenotypes, explored gene intervention strategies for LHON using iPSC and gene editing technologies, and promoted translational application of mutation detection technologies. He has led major grants including NIH R01 awards (USA), National 973 Program, and National Key Research and Development Program of China. He has published numerous papers in journals such as J Clin Invest and Am J Hum Genet. His honours include two Second Class Prizes of the National Award for Science and Technology Progress and the Tan Jiazhen Life Science Innovation Award. He holds 11 authorized national invention patents and is the chief editor of Medical Genetics. He has served as President of the Chinese American Genetic Association and President of the Asian Mitochondrial Medicine and Research Society, and currently serves as Vice President of the Chinese Society of Genetics.
Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Chief Physician and Master's Supervisor, Department of Neurology/Genetic and Rare Diseases, Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Deputy Director, Shanghai Professional Technical Service Platform for Genetic and Rare Neurological Diseases
Member and Secretary, Committee of Clinical Genetics, Shanghai Medical Doctor Association
Member and Secretary, Neuroimmunology, Genetics and Biochemistry Group, Neurology Branch, Shanghai Medical Association Member, Branch of Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Shanghai Medical Association
Member, Shanghai Association Against Epilepsy
Young Member, Professional Committee on Chronic Nervous System Diseases, Shanghai Society of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine
Selected as an Excellent Young Medical Talent by the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning; dedicated to clinical and translational research on movement disorders and neurogenetic diseases; principal Investigator of projects funded by the Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the General Program of the Shanghai Natural Science Foundation, and the Youth Project of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health; author of over 40 papers in journals including Neurology, Movement Disorders, and Advanced Science.
The Third Xiangya Hospital of Central South University
Xiangya Hospital of Central South University
Professional Appointments
Director of Hunan Key Laboratory of Neurodegenerative Diseases
Deputy Director of National Engineering Research Center for Personalized Diagnosis and Treatment Technology Member of Ataxia Global Initiative
Deputy leader of Neurogenetics Group, Neurology Society, Chinese Medical Association Chairman of neurogenetics Committee of Chinese Medical Doctor Association
Standing Committee Member of the Neurologists Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, and Chairperson of the Neurological Genetics and Rare Diseases Group
Vice President of the Hunan Provincial Medical Association, and Chairman of the Professional Committee of Neurology
Honors
Leading Talent in scientific and technological innovation of the "Ten Thousand Plan" of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee
Leading Talent of young and middle-aged scientific and technological innovation of the Ministry of Science and Technology
Scientific Research Achievements
He has presided one National key R & D plan project, twelve National Natural Science Foundation projects. 100+ SCI papers were published in Transl Neurodegener, J Adv Res, J Clin Invest, Brain and other international authoritative academic journals. Ten invention patents and one software copyright were authorized.
Zhejiang University School of Medicine
Zhonghua Lu, Ph. D., is a professor at Zhejiang University School of Medicine. The major focus of his lab is to develop gene therapy approaches for brain disorders. His lab is also interested in developing nonhuman primate and rodent animal models for brain disorders, especially neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, and epilepsy, and study disease mechanisms. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers in journals including Cell, Nature, and Cell Reports. He has won the 2023 “Top 10 Scientific Advances in Life Sciences of China” award.
Fudan University
Bo Peng is a distinguished professor at Fudan University. His research is centered on microglia in the central nervous system, with a particular focus on elucidating the mechanisms of their turnover and replacement. Based on the study of microglial repopulation, he has pioneered microglia replacement for the treatment of neurological disorders. In 2020, his team achieved the world’s first efficient microglia replacement in animal models. After that, his group published the world’s first clinical trial of microglia replacement therapy in 2025, demonstrating its efficacy and paving a new path for treating neurological diseases. His key research findings have been published as last author in high-impact journals including Science (2025), Nature Neuroscience (2018), Nature Aging (2023), Neuron (2021), Cell Stem Cell (2025), Cell Reports (2020), Nature Communications (2022), and eLife (2023). Prof. Peng has received numerous awards, including the New Era Youth Pioneer Award, Takeda Innovators in Science Award with Nature, Asian Young Scientist Fellowship (AYSF), Zhong Nanshan Youth Science and Technology Innovation Award, Chinese Medical Science and Technology Award for Young Scientists, and the Huaxia Medical Science and Technology Youth Award.
Sichuan University
Professor Huifang Shang is a professor and vice director of department of Neurology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University. She focused on the clinical and basic research on neurodegenerative and movement disorders. She got seven funding from National Natural Science Foundation of China. She published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles in the Journals such as “Alzheimer & Dementia”, “Annal of Neurology”, “Molecular Neurodegeneration”, “Movement Disorder”, “Neurology”, “Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry”, and “human brain mapping” et al. She is editor board member of 《Translational Neurodegeneration》、《J of Alzheimer Disorder》and《Parkinson & Related Disorder》, associated editor of《Frontier in Neurology》movement disorder section and chief editor of《Frontier in Neurology》Genetics section as well as《Clinical Parkinson & Related Disorder》. She has been selected for 2023～2025 “Highly Cited Chinese Researchers” with H-index of 50. She is one of the steering committee member of Chinese Huntington disease network（CHDN）. She was one of the officers of international Parkinson and Movement Disorder society Asian and Pacific region committee. Member, Expert Committee on Diagnosis, Treatment and Security of Rare Diseases, National Health Commission. Also as the standing Committee Member, Branch of Rare Diseases, Chinese Medical Association.
Zhejiang University
Professor Wang Xuhua focuses on the research and development of drugs and delivery systems for the treatment of spinal cord injury. His work approaches the problem from the perspectives of neuroprotection, promotion of axonal regeneration, and neuromodulation, developing corresponding drugs and methods.
He was the first to propose a strategy that simultaneously targets both neuroprotection and neuromodulation as two key mechanisms of spinal cord repair (Nature Nanotechnology, 2023). He invented methods to protect residual neural tissue/axons (Nature Communications, 2023), developed drugs with neuromodulatory effects (Briefings in Bioinformatics, 2023), and created protein drugs that promote axonal regeneration as well as AAV vectors capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier (Cell Press Blue, 2026).
He has applied for more than 20 Chinese invention patents (8 of which have been granted). He has led a project under the Ministry of Science and Technology’s 2030 Major Project, two General Program projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and has received the Zhejiang Provincial Outstanding Youth Fund along with its continuation support project.
Peking University
Wensheng Wei, Professor at the Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center, Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, and the School of Life Sciences at Peking University, Director of the Genome Editing Research Center at Peking University, and Lead Scientist at Changping National Laboratory. The Wei group’s research primarily focuses on advancing eukaryotic gene editing tools, with particular emphasis on high-throughput functional genomics, gene and cell therapy, and innovative RNA therapeutics utilizing circular RNAs.
Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Dr. Zhi-Qi Xiong received his Ph. D. degree from Baylor College of Medicine and performed his postdoctoral training at the department of neurobiology of Duke University. In 2003, he established his laboratory at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His laboratory has been using a combination of biochemical and genetic approaches to investigate the molecular bases of neurological diseases.
Zhejiang University and the Second Affiliated Hospital
Dr. Chien-Hsiung Yu, Group Leader at Zhejiang University and the Second Affiliated Hospital, where he interrogates how innate immune sensing of intercellular danger signals drives neurodegeneration, and how these insights can be translated into new therapies. As Thwaites Gutch Centenary Fellow at WEHI, Australia, he discovered that TDP-43 pathology triggers mitochondrial DNA release and cGAS-STING-driven neurodegeneration (Cell, 2020; >1,100 citations). His work spans neuroinflammation and rare genetic diseases (Nature Neuroscience, Science Immunology, Nature Communications, EMBO Journal), with invited commentary on Alzforum, grant assessment for Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, and reviews in Nature Reviews Immunology and Trends in Cell Biology. Honors include the NHMRC Investigator Emerging Leadership Fellowship, Frick Foundation Award for ALS Research, Daniel McLoone Research Prize, and 2025 NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund (Overseas).
Shenzhen Bay Laboratory
Ke Zhang is a junior PI in the Institute of Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders at Shenzhen Bay Laboratory. He obtained his B.S. degree at Tsinghua University and his Ph.D. degree in neurological disease research at Baylor College of Medicine. After that, he continued his research in neurological diseases, especially amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia, for his postdoctoral training and independent research as an Assistant Professor in the US. In 2022, he returned to China and joined Shenzhen Bay Laboratory. Currently, his research program focuses on two themes: neurodegenerative and hereditary neurodevelopmental disorders. His team uses animals and patient iPSC-derived neurons as models to dissect pathomechanism and develop novel therapeutics. He has published ~30 papers with more than 5,000 citations. He has received several international and national awards, including the Frick Foundation for ALS Research Award (2020), the Springboard Fellowship Award from Target ALS Foundation (2018), etc.
Peking University First Hospital
Yuehua Zhang is a professor of Pediatric Neurology in Children’s Medical Centre of Peking University First Hospital. She is a member of the International League Against Epilepsy（ILAE） Taskforce of the Genetic Commission. She is an executive committee member of Chinese Association Against Epilepsy (CAAE) and Beijing Association Against Epilepsy（BAAE）. She is the deputy leader of the Rare Disease Group of the Pediatrics Branch of the Chinese Medical Association. She worked in Epilepsy Research Centre of Melbourne University as a visiting Scholar (2004-2005). She focuses on genetics study of epilepsy and paroxysmal movement disorders. She has published over 280 papers. She co-edited the book on Pediatric Neurology and Epilepsy Genetics. She received the Ministry of education Science and Technology Progress Award. She was awarded from the Ministry of education, the Chinese Medical Association and Song Qingling Pediatric Medicine Prize.
Tongji University School of Medicine
Zheng Jialin, MD in Neurology, National High level Overseas Talent, recipient of the Special Government Allowance of the State Council. He is currently Dean of Tongji University School of Medicine (Distinguished Second Tier Professor) and Director of the MOE Innovation Center for Basic Pharmaceutical Research on Brain Aging Related Diseases at Tongji University.
He went to the United States in 1992 and spent 24 years there, holding successive positions as visiting scholar, postdoctoral fellow, instructor, assistant professor, associate professor and tenured full professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. During this period, he also served for several years as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Associate Dean of the Graduate School. In 2011, he took a concurrent post as Director of the Division of Medicine and Life Sciences at Tongji University, and returned to China full time in 2016 to assume the office of Dean of Tongji University School of Medicine.
His research focuses on brain aging related disorders including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), with particular interests in central neuroinflammatory mechanisms, as well as evaluation of precision therapies for neurological diseases such as AD using autologous reprogrammed neural stem cells and extracellular vesicles. He is an invited expert for the National Natural Science Foundation of China, member of the Ministry of Education Teaching Steering Committee and clinical medicine accreditation expert, standing committee member of the Academic Health Centers International (AAHCI), Chair of the Neurodegenerative Diseases Branch of the Chinese Society for Neuroscience, and Co Chair of the Executive Committee of the International Brain Initiative (IBI).
He has published more than 270 research publications, with over 14 600 citations, an H index of 70 and an i10 index of 173. He has been listed among the World’s Top 2% Scientists. He was elected Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (Division of Medicine) in 2023, and Member of the Academia Europaea (Division of Life Sciences) in 2024.
Nanjing University
Xiao-Yang Zhang is a Tenure-Track Associate Professor at the School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, and a Principal Investigator (PI) at the State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology. She serves as a Committee Member of the Vestibular and Dizziness Medicine Branch of the Chinese Society of Geriatrics, a Committee Member of the Sensory and Motor Systems Branch of the Chinese Neuroscience Society, Deputy Secretary-General of the Jiangsu Physiological Society, Vice Chair of the Youth Working Committee of the Jiangsu Neuroscience Society, and a Young Editorial Board Member for Neuroscience Bulletin, BMEF (Biomedical Engineering Frontiers), and Acta Physiologica Sinica.
Her primary research interests include motor control, emotional processing, and the neurobiological mechanisms of major motor and affective disorders. She has led multiple nationally funded projects, including the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars (Type B), the Brain Science and Brain-like Intelligence Technology-National Science and Technology Youth Scientist Project (Type B), a sub-project of the NSFC Major Scientific Instrument Development Project, and an NSFC General Program.
She has published more than 40 research articles and reviews in high-impact journals, with representative works in Neuron (cover article, Best of Neuron 2024–2025, accompanied by an invited commentary), PNAS, Molecular Psychiatry (highlight article), Advanced Science, Pharmacological Research, Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, Research, Journal of Neuroscience and Journal of Physiology.
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