Personal Profile

Professor Zhang Hui is a recipient of the Overseas High-Level Talent Program of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee (the second batch of innovators in 2009, working full-time at Sun Yat-sen University) and a nationally recruited expert. He is the "Guohua" Distinguished Professor at the Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, and the Director of the Institute of Human Virology, Sun Yat-sen University.

He graduated from the Clinical Medicine program at the Zhongshan Medical College. After serving as an internal medicine resident physician for three years, he obtained his master's degree in medicine from the Department of Hematology at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhongshan Medical University. He then earned his Doctor of Science degree from the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in the United States.

In 1997, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases and the Center for Human Virology Research at the Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. In 2008, he was promoted to a tenured full professor. Since 2005, he has been serving as the Associate Director of the Institute for Human Virology and Biodefense at Jefferson University.

As the principal investigator (PI), he has received support from four US NIH RO1 grants and has served as a mentor in one NIH KO1 grant for assistant professors. Since December 2012, he has completely closed his laboratory in the United States and has been working full-time at Sun Yat-sen University, where he established the Institute of Human Virology.

After returning to China, he led the human virology research team as the first recipient to be selected for the first batch of innovative teams introduced under the "Pearl River Talent Plan" in Guangdong Province and was rated as excellent upon completion and acceptance of the project.

As the first author, Professor Zhang Hui has published papers in journals such as NEJM, PNAS, and J. Virol. As the corresponding author, he has published papers in journals such as Nature, Nature Med, Immunity, JCI, PNAS, EMBO J, Nature Comm, NAR, Advanced Science, STTT, CMI, Mol Therapy, Cell Reports, eLife, mBio, Plos Path, and J. Virol. He has published over 150 SCI papers, with a total citation count of over 8,000. Since his return to China, his research achievements have led to the application for more than sixty domestic and international patents, with over forty granted. In recent years, as the project leader, he has successively presided over one "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" and one "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" major projects for the prevention and control of infectious diseases such as AIDS and viral hepatitis (both completed), one major project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (completed), one international cooperation project (China NSFC - US NIH) (completed), two key projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and one special project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China on COVID-19.

He is the deputy editor of the graduate textbook Molecular Virology (People's Health Publishing House). He has long been involved in the classroom teaching of Medical Microbiology for five-year and eight-year medical students at the Zhongshan School of Medicine. As the course leader, he has also hosted discussion courses on Introduction to Biomedical Papers for postgraduates and undergraduates.

Research Directions

• Development of nanometer particle vaccines for diseases such as novel coronaviruses and their mutant strains, influenza, AIDS, dengue fever, tumors, atherosclerosis-like diseases, etc., and related immunological mechanism research.
• Investigation of the formation mechanism of HIV-1 virus reservoirs and the identification of their biomarkers.
• A series of basic and clinical studies on immunocyte therapies represented by CAR-T for chronic viral infections and tumors.

• High-throughput screening of small molecule compounds and antibodies against various highly pathogenic viruses and tumors and further research on their drugability.

   

Academic Achievements

Representative work before returning to China

1    Zhang H, Dornadula G, Beumont M, Livornese L Jr, Van Uitert B, Henning K, Pomerantz RJ. Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 in the semen of men receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy. New England Journal of Medicine. 1998. 339: 1803-1839

2     Zhang H*, Pomerantz RJ, Dornadula G, Sun Y. Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 Vif protein is an integral component of an mRNP complex of viral RNA and could be involved in the viral RNA folding and packaging process. Journal of Virology. 2000. 74: 8252-8261.

3     Dornadula G, Yang SC, Pomerantz RJ, Zhang H*. Partial rescue of the Vif-negative phenotype of mutant HIV-1 viruses from non-permissive cells by intravirion reverse transcription. Journal of Virology. 2000. 74: 2594-2602.

4     Zhang H*, Yang B, Pomerantz RJ, Zhang C, Arunachalam SC, Gao L. The cytidine deaminase CEM15 induces hypermutation in newly-synthesized HIV-1 DNA. Nature. 2003. 424: 94-98.

5     Chen K, Huang J, Zhang C, Huang S, Nunnari G, Wang FX, Tong X, Gao, L, Nikisher K, Zhang H*. Alpha interferon potently enhances the anti-HIV-1 activity of APOBEC3G in resting primary CD4 T-cells. Journal of Virology. 2006. 80: 7645-7657

6     Huang JL, Wang FX, Argyris E, Chen KY, Liang ZH, Tian H, Huang WL, Squires K, Verlinghieri G, and Zhang H*: Cellular microRNAs contribute to HIV-1 latency in resting CD4+ T-lymphocytes. Nature Medicine. 2007. 13: 1241-1247

Representative Work in the Last Three Years

1．Ma XC, Yang T, Luo YW, Wu LY, Jiang YW, Song Z, Pan T, Liu BF, Liu G, Liu J, Yu F, He Z, Zhang W, Yang J, Liang L, Guan Y, Zhang X, Li L, Cai W, Tang X, Gao S, Deng K, and Zhang H*. TRIM28 promotes HIV-1 latency by SUMOylating CDK9 and inhibiting P-TEFb. eLife. 2019. 8: e42426.

2．Pan T, Song Z, Wu L, Liu G, Ma X, Peng Z, Zhou M, Liang L, Liu B, Liu J, Zhang J, Zhang X, Huang R, Zhao J, Li Y, Ling X, Luo Y, Tang X, Cai W, Deng K, Li L*, and Zhang H*. USP49 potently stabilizes APOBEC3G protein by removing ubiquitin and inhibits HIV-1 replication. eLife. 2019. 8: e48318.

3.    Luo YW, Liu Y, Wu LY, Ma XC, Liu Q, Huang F, Zhang X, Zhang YW, Zhang JS, Luo HH， Yang Y, Lu G, Tang XP, Li LH, Zeng YX, Pan T*, and Zhang H*. CUL7 E3 Ubiquitin Ligase Mediates the Degradation of Activation-induced Cytidine Deaminase (AID) and Regulates the Immunoglobulin Class Switch Recombination in B-Lymphocytes. Journal of Immunology. 2019. 203: 269-281.

4    Zou F, Lu LJ, Liu J, Xia BJ, Zhang WY, Hu QF, Liu WW, Zhang YW, Lin YT, Jing SL, Huang M, Huang BF, Liu BF*, and Zhang H*. Engineered triple inhibitory receptor resistance improves anti-tumor CAR-T cell performance via CD56. Nature Communications. 2019. 10(1): 4109.

5     Yu F, Li Q, Chen X, Liu J, Li L, Li B, Liu B, Zhang J, Zhang X, Liu Z, Luo H, Tang XP, Cai W, Zhang H*, and Deng K*. X4-Tropic Latent HIV-1 Is Enriched in Peripheral Follicular Helper T Cells and Is Correlated with Disease Progression. Journal of Virology. 2020. 94(2): e01219-19.

6     Zhang JS, Liu J, Yuan YC, Huang F, Ma R, Luo BH, Xi ZH, Pan T, Liu BF, Zhang YW, Zhang X, Luo YW, Wang J, Zhao M, Lu G, Deng K*, and Zhang H*. Two waves of pro-inflammatory factors are released during the influenza A virus (IAV)-driven pulmonary immunopathogenesis. PLoS Pathogens. 2020. 16(2): e1008334.

7     He ZP, Jing SL, Yang T, Chen JL, Huang F, Zhang WY, Peng ZL, Liu BF, Ma XC, Wu LY, Pan T, Zhang X, Li LH, Cai WP, Tang XP, Zhang JS*, and Zhang H*. PIWIL4 maintains HIV-1 latency by enforcing epigenetically suppressive modifications on the 5' long terminal repeat. Journal of Virology. 2020. 94(10): e01923-19.

8     Zhang YW, Chen YS, Ma R, Jiang YW, Liu J, Lin YT, Chen SQ, Xia MY, Zou F, Zhang JS, Pan T, Wang L, Wei L*, and Zhang H*. UHRF1 Controls Thymocyte Fate Decisions through the Epigenetic Regulation of EGR1 Expression. Journal of Immunology. 2020. 204(12): 3248-3261.

9     Liu BF, Shi YL, Zhang WY, Li R, He ZP, Yang XF, Pan YJ, Deng XL, Tan MK, Zhao LZ, Zou F, Zhang YW, Pan T, Zhang JS, Zhang X, Xiao F, Li F*, Deng K*, and Zhang H*. Recovered COVID-19 patients with recurrent viral RNA exhibit lower levels of anti-RBD antibodies. Cellular and Molecular Immunology. 2020.17(10): 1098-1100.

10   Luo BH, Zhan YK, Luo MQ, Dong HM, Liu J, Lin YT, Zhang JS, Wang GW, Zhang YW *, and Zhang H*. Engineering of α-PD-1 Antibody-Expressing Long-lived Plasma Cells by CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated Targeted Gene Integration. Cell Death and Diseases. 2020.11(11): 973.

11   Ma XC, Zou F, Yu F, Li R, Yuan YC, Zhang YW, Zhang XT, Deng JY, Chen T, Song Z, Qiao YD, Zhan YK, Liu J, Zhang JS, Zhang X, Peng ZL, Li YZ, Lin YT, Liang LT, Wang GW, Chen YS, Chen QE, Pan T, He X, and Zhang H *. Nanoparticle Vaccines Based on the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) and Heptad Repeat (HR) of SARS-CoV-2 Elicit Robust Protective Immune Responses. Immunity. 2020. 53(6): 1315-1330.

12   Luo YW, Yu F, Zhou M, Liu Y, Xia BJ, Zhang XT, Liu J, Zhang JS, Du YY, Li R, Wu LY, Zhang X, Pan T, Guo DY, Peng T, and Zhang H*. Engineering a Reliable and Convenient SARS-CoV-2 Replicon System for Analysis of Viral RNA Synthesis and Screening of Antiviral Inhibitors. mBio. 2021.12: e02754-20.

13   Ma X, Chen T, Peng Z, Wang Z, Liu J, Yang T, Wu L, Liu G, Zhou M, Tong M, Guan Y, Zhang X, Lin Y, Tang X, Li L, Tang Z, Pan T, and Zhang H*. Histone chaperone CAF-1 promotes HIV-1 latency by leading the formation of phase-separated suppressive nuclear bodies. EMBO Journal. 2021. 40(10): e106632.

14   Li R, Ma XC, Deng JY, Chen QE, Liu WW, Peng ZL, Qiao YD, Lin YT, He X*, and Zhang H*. Differential efficiencies to neutralize the novel mutants B.1.1.7 and 501Y.V2 by collected sera from convalescent COVID-19 patients and RBD nanoparticle-vaccinated rhesus macaques. Cellular and Molecular Immunology. 2021. 18:1058-1060.

15   Zou F, Tan J, Liu T, Liu B, Tang Y, Zhang H*, and Li J*. The CD39+ HBV surface protein-targeted CAR-T and personalized tumor-reactive CD8+ T cells exhibit potent anti-HCC activity. Molecular Therapy. 2021. 29(5): 1794-1807.

16   Zhang YW, Hu H, Liu W, Yan SM, Li Y, Tan L, Chen Y, Liu J, Peng Z, Yuan Y, Huang W, Yu F, He X, Li B*, and Zhang H*. Amino acids and RagD potentiate mTORC1 activation in CD8+ T cells to confer antitumor immunity. Journal of Immunotherapy of Cancer. 2021. 9(4): e002137.

17   Zhang JS, Huang F, Xia BJ, Yuan YC, Yu F, Wang GW, Chen QY, Wang Q, Li YZ, Li R, Song Z, Pan T, Chen JL, Lu G, and Zhang H*. The interferon-stimulated exosomal hACE2 potently inhibits SARS-CoV-2 replication through competitively blocking the virus entry. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy. 2021. 6(1): 189.

18   Zhang YW, Chen YS, Li YZ, Huang F, Luo BH, Yuan YC, Xia BJ, Ma XC, Yang T, Yu F, Liu J, Liu BF, Song Z, Chen JL, Yan SM, Wu LY, Pan T, Zhang X, Li R, Huang WJ, He X, Xiao F, Zhang JS*, and Zhang H*. The ORF8 Protein of SARS-CoV-2 Mediates Immune Evasion through Downregulating MHC-Ι. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). 2021. 118(23): e2024202118.

19   Zhang X, Yuan Y, Wu B, Wang X, Lin Y, Luo Y, Li R, Chen T, Deng J, Zhang X, Zou F, He X*, Zhang H*. Improvement of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine by enhancing the conjugation efficiency of the immunogen to self-assembled nanoparticles. Cellular and Molecular Immunology. 2021. 18(8):2042-2044.

20   Pan T, Hu Z, Hu F, Zhang Y, Liu B, Ke C, She Q, He X*, Tang X*, Zhang H*. Significantly reduced abilities to cross-neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants by sera from convalescent COVID-19 patients infected by Delta or early strains. Cellular and Molecular Immunology. 2021. 18(11):2560-2562.

21   Liu B, Zhang W, Xia B, Jing S, Du Y, Zou F, Li R, Lu L, Chen S, Li Y, Hu Q, Lin Y, Zhang Y, He Z, Zhang X, Chen X, Peng T, Tang X, Cai W, Pan T*, Li L*, Zhang H*. Broadly neutralizing antibody-derived CAR T cells reduce viral reservoir in individuals infected with HIV-1. Journal of Clinical Investigation. 2021.131(19):e150211.

22   Pan T, Chen R, He X, Yuan Y, Deng X, Li R, Yan H, Yan S, Liu J, Zhang Y, Zhang X, Yu F, Zhou M, Ke C, Ma X*, Zhang H*. Infection of wild-type mice by SARS-CoV-2 B.1.351 variant indicates a possible novel cross-species transmission route. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy. 2021. 6(1): 420.

23   Zhang X, Wu S, Wu B, Yang Q, Chen A, Li Y, Zhang Y, Pan T, Zhang* H, He X*. SARS-CoV-2 Omicron strain exhibits potent capabilities for immune evasion and viral entrance. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy. 2021. 6(1):430.

24   Yuan Y, Zhang X, Chen R, Li Y, Wu B, Li R, Zou F, Ma X, Wang X, Chen Q, Deng J, Zhang Y, Chen T, Lin Y, Yan S, Zhang X, Li C, Bu X, Peng Y, Ke C, Deng K, Pan T, He X, Zhang Y*, Zhang H*. A bivalent nanoparticle vaccine exhibits potent cross-protection against the variants of SARS-CoV-2. Cell Reports. 2022. 38(3):110256.

25. Luo Y, Zhang X, Chen R, Li R, Liu Y, Zhang J, Liu Q, Si M, Liu J, Wu B, Wang X, Wu S, Zhang Y, Zhang X, Guo D, He X, Pan T, Zhang H*. USP10 regulates B cell response to SARS-CoV-2 or HIV-1 nanoparticle vaccines through deubiquitinating AID. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy. 2022. 7(1):7.

26.  Chen R, Zhang XT, Yuan YC, Deng XH, Wu BL, Xi ZH, Wang GW, Lin YT, Li R, Wang XM, Zou F, Liang LT, Yan HP, Liang CF, Li YZ, Wu SJ, Deng JY, Zhou M, Zhang X, Li CR, Bu XQ, Peng Y, Ke CW, Deng K, He X, Zhang YW, Zhang ZH, Pan T*, Zhang H*. Development of Receptor Binding Domain (RBD)-Conjugated Nanoparticle Vaccines with Broad Neutralization Against SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Other Variants. Advanced Science. In press.

Research Projects (Last Three Years)

1. Identification of Biomarkers for Precise Diagnosis and Treatment of AIDS. National Key R & D Program for Major Infectious Diseases such as AIDS and Viral Hepatitis during the 13th Five-Year Plan Period (2018ZX10302103, January 2018 - December 2020). Project Leader. Completed.
2. Mechanistic Study on the Epigenetic Mechanism of HIV-1 Viral Reservoir Formation and Its Clearance Methods. Key Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81730060, January 2018 - December 2022). Project Leader.
3. Study on the Interaction Mechanism between the S Protein of SARS-CoV-2 and Host Cell Membrane Proteins and Identification of Targets. Special Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China for COVID-19 (82041002, March 2020 - March 2022). Project Leader.
4. Mechanistic Study on the Role of Protein Deubiquitination in Regulating Humoral Immune Response against SARS-CoV-2 (92169201, January 2022 - December 2025). Key Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Project Leader.

Academic Positions

• On-site Judge for Major Infectious Disease Prevention and Control/New Drug Development Projects during the 12th and 13th Five-Year Plans of the National Government.
• On-site Judge for the Ministry of Education's Yangtze River Scholars Program (Group One: Life Sciences or Medicine), On-site Judge for Applicants of the Innovative National Major Talent Plan, On-site Judge for Applicants of the Entrepreneurial National Major Talent Plan, and On-site Judge for Applicants of the Foreign Experts Thousand Talents Plan.
• On-site Judge for Key Projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
• Member of the Academic Committee of Sun Yat-sen University, Member of the Degree Evaluation Committee of Sun Yat-sen University, and Member of the Faculty Appointment Committee of Sun Yat-sen University.
• Vice Chairman of the Academic Committee of the Medical School of Sun Yat-sen University, Member of the Degree Evaluation Committee of the Medical School of Sun Yat-sen University, and Member of the Faculty Appointment Committee of the Medical School of Sun Yat-sen University.
• Chairman of the Academic Committee of Zhongshan School of Medicine, Member of the Degree Evaluation Committee of Zhongshan School of Medicine, and Member of the Faculty Appointment Committee of Zhongshan School of Medicine.