Biography
Ying Zhang, Ph.D., joined School of Life Sciences at Peking University and the Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences as a Principle Investigator in 2022. Dr. Zhang received her Ph.D. in Biomedicine from Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania in 2016. From 2016-2021, Dr. Zhang was a postdoc fellow in the lab of Dr. Judy Lieberman at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, and she was promoted to instructor at Harvard Medical School in 2021. Dr. Zhang’s long-term research interests focus on cancer immunology and immunotherapy. She has published original studies in the field of cancer vaccines, cancer immunometabolism, inflammatory cell death, and cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Ying Zhang was a recipient of the Cancer Research Institute Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2018 and the U.S. Army Department of Defense Breast Cancer Breakthrough Award in 2019. In 2021, Dr. Ying Zhang received the National Institute of Health (NIH)/National Cancer Institute (NCI) K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, one of the highest awards given by NIH to outstanding young scientists. A major focus of the Zhang laboratory is to study how inflammatory cell death modulates antitumor immunity and to develop novel strategies to promote inflammatory cancer cell death, with the goal to efficiently enhancing the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy. Pore-forming protein Gasdermins (GSDMs) are the major executor of pyroptosis. Dr. Zhang’s laboratory is also interested in understanding the novel biological functions of GSDM proteins in tumors.
Education
2009.09-2016.08， Ph.D.，Biomedicine，University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
2005.09-2009.06， B.S.，Biological Sciences，Nankai University
Professional Experience
2022.07-Present， Assistant Professor， Peking University School of Life Sciences
2022.07-Present， Principle Investigator， Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences
2021.02-2022.06， Instructor， Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School
2016.11-2021.02， Postdoctoral Fellow， Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School
Honors and Awards
Outstanding Class Advisor of Peking University，2024
Peking University Boya Young Scholar， 2023
Bayer Investigator， 2022
Yi Fang Investigator， 2022
National Institute of Health/National Cancer Institute, K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award， 2021
U.S. Army Department of Defense Breast Cancer Breakthrough Award， 2019
Cancer Research Institute Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship， 2018
President Gutmann Leadership Award， 2016
American Association for Cancer Research Scholar-in-Training Award， 2014
There is a pressing need to develop novel therapeutics that could turn T cell-excluded “cold” tumors into T cell-inflamed “hot” tumors to advance the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy. Cancer cells undergo distinct forms of programmed cell death (PCD) following stress, killer lymphocyte attack, and drugs, which can greatly affect immune activation and sensitivity to treatment. Apoptosis, a major form of cancer cell PCD, tends to be anti-inflammatory and promotes immune tolerance. Pyroptosis, by contrast, is a more rapid, lytic, and highly inflammatory form of PCD. Both pyroptosis and necroptosis, another type of inflammatory cell death, are implicated as forms of immunogenic cell death (ICD) that could drive robust antitumor immunity. An overarching hypothesis of our research program is that inducing inflammatory cell death in the tumor would serve as a powerful approach to awaken antitumor immunity and immunotherapy responsiveness.
Pyroptosis is mediated by cleavage of gasdermin (GSDM) proteins that produce N-terminal fragments, which form pores in the plasma membrane that permeabilize the cells to induce cytosolic molecule release and cell burst. All GSDM family members, including GSDMA-E as well as DFNB59 possess pore-forming activity. Our previous work shows that during killer lymphocyte attack, granzyme B (GzmB) released from tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) could directly cleave GSDME to induce GSDME-mediated cancer cell pyroptosis, which potently inhibited tumor growth and improved antitumor immunity. This work illustrates the tumor-suppressive and immunostimulatory capacity of GSDME and reveals its activation mechanism in the tumor, demonstrating the power of pyroptosis in promoting antitumor immune responses. However, little is known about how pyroptosis and other forms of inflammatory cell death modulate antitumor immunity. How genes involved in the process of inflammatory cell death are regulated and their activation mechanism also remain largely unknown. Moreover, the functions of GSDM beyond its involvement in pyroptosis remain a mystery. To address these questions, our laboratory will carry out studies in the following areas:
I. Determine how pyroptosis and other forms of inflammatory cell death affect tumor immune signature to inhibit tumor growth.
II. Explore mechanisms to promote inflammatory cell death and innate immune signaling as potent cancer immunotherapy.
III. Explore novel functions of GSDM proteins in innate and adaptive antitumor immunity.
Zhang, Z†., Zhang, Y†. & Lieberman, J†. Innate immunity in tumour immunoediting and immunosurveillance. The EMBO Journal ( (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44318-025-00650-7. †Corresponding Author.
Cheng L and Zhang Y†. Cell death, IL-1 cytokines, and tumor progression, Cancer Cell (2025) May 12;43(5):817-819. †Corresponding Author.
Cheng L, Wang Y, Zhang Y†. Dying to survive: harnessing inflammatory cell death for better immunotherapy. Trends in Cancer. 2025 Feb 21:S2405-8033(25)00013-5. †Corresponding Author.
Zhang Y*†, Yeganeh PN*, Zhang HW, Wang SY, Li ZYH, Gu BW, Lee DJ, Zhang ZB, Ploumakis A, Shi M, Wu H, Greer EL, Hide W†, Lieberman J†. Tumor editing suppresses innate and adaptive antitumor immunity and is reversed by inhibiting DNA methylation. Nature Immunology. 2024 Oct;25(10):1858-1870. *Co-first Author, †Corresponding Author.
Fontana, P*, Du. G*, Zhang, Y*, Zhang HW*, Vora SM, Hu JJ, Shi M, Tufan AB, Healy LB, Xia SY, Lee DJ, Li ZYH, Flores PB, Ru H, Luo HR, Agudo J, Lieberman J, Wu H. Small molecule GSDMD agonism in tumors stimulates antitumor immunity without toxicity. Cell. 2024 October; 187:1-17. *Co-first Author.
Zhang Y, Xie X, Yeganeh PN, Lee DJ, Valle-Garcia D, Meza-Sosa KF, Junqueira C, Su J, Luo H, Hide W, Lieberman J. Immunotherapy for breast cancer using EpCAM aptamer tumor-targeted gene knockdown. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2021 March; 118(9): e2022830118.
Zhang Z, Zhang Y, Judy Lieberman. Lighting a Fire: Can We Harness Pyroptosis to Ignite Antitumor Immunity? Cancer Immunology Research. 2021; 9 (1) 2-7.
Zhang Z*, Zhang Y*, Xia S, Kong Q, Li S, Liu X, Junqueira C, Meza-Sosa KF, Mok TMY, Ansara J, Sengupta S, Yao Y, Wu H, Lieberman J. Gasdermin E suppresses tumour growth by activating anti-tumour immunity. Nature. 2020 Mar;579(7799):415-420 *Co-first Author with Equal Contribution.
Research Highlighted by:
Nature Reviews Immunology. 2020 May;20(5):274-275. doi: 10.1038/s41577-020-0297-2.
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. 2020 May;19(5):309. doi: 10.1038/d41573-020-00062-8.
Science. 2020 May 29;368(6494):943-944. doi: 10.1126/science.abc2502.
Science Signaling. 2020 March; 13(624). doi: 10,1038/d41573-020-00062-8.
Signal Transduction Targeted Therapy. 2020 May 13;5(1):69. doi: 10.1038/s41392-020-0180-4.
Hu JJ, Liu X, Xia S, Zhang Z, Zhang Y, Zhao J, Ruan J, Luo X, Lou X, Bai Y, Wang J, Hollingsworth LR, Magupalli VG, Zhao L, Luo HR, Kim J, Lieberman J, Wu H. FDA-approved disulfiram inhibits pyroptosis by blocking gasdermin D pore formation. Nature Immunology. 2020 Jul;21(7):736-745.
Zhang Y, Kurupati R, Liu L Zhou XY, Zhang G, Hudaihed A, Filisio F, Giles-Davies W, Xu W, Karakousis GC, Schuchter LM, Xu W, Amaravadi R, Xiao M, Sadek N, Krepler C, Herlyn M, Freeman GJ, Rabinowitz J, Ertl HC. Enhancing CD8+ T cell fatty acid catabolism within a metabolically challenging tumor microenvironment increases the efficacy of melanoma immunotherapy. Cancer Cell. 2017 Sept; 32(3):377-391.e9.
Research Highlighted by:
Nature Reviews Cancer. 2017 Nov;17(11):635. doi:10.1038/nrc.2017.94.
Cancer Cell. 2017 Sep; 32(3):280-281. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.08.013.
Cancer Discovery. 2017 Nov; 7(11):1213. doi:10.1158/2159-8290.CD-RW2017-182.
Zhang Y, Ertl HC. Aging: T cell metabolism within tumors. Aging. 2016 Jun; 8(6):1163-4.
Zhang Y, Ertl HC. Depletion of FAP+ cells reduces immunosuppressive cells and improves metabolism and functions CD8+T cells within tumors. Oncotarget. 2016; 7(17): 23282-23299.
Zhang Y, Ertl HC. Starved and asphyxiated: how can CD8+T cells within a tumor microenvironment prevent tumor progression. Frontiers in Immunology. 2016;7(32).
Zhang Y, Ertl HC. The effect of adjuvanting cancer vaccines with herpes simplex virus glycoprotein D on Melanoma-Driven CD8+T cell exhaustion. Journal of Immunology. 2014; 193(4): 1836-1846.
Meza-Sosa KF, Miao R, Navarro F, Zhang Z, Zhang Y, Hu JJ, Hartford C, Li X, Pedraza-Alva G, Pérez-Martínez L, Lal A, Wu H, Lieberman J. SPARCLE, a p53-induced lncRNA, controls apoptosis after genotoxic stress by promoting PARP-1 cleavage. Molecular Cell. 2022, 82(4): 785-802.
Vora SM, Fontana P, Mao T, Leger V, Zhang Y, Fu TM, Lieberman J, Gehrke L, Shi M, Wang LF, Iwasaki A, Wu H. Targeting Stem-loop 1 of the SARS-CoV-2 5’UTR to suppress viral translation and Nsp1 evasion. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2022, 119(9): e2117198119.
