Yi Zhang (biochemist)

Yi Zhang () is a Chinese-American biochemist who specializes in the fields of epigenetics, chromatin, and developmental reprogramming. He is a Fred Rosen Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, a Senior Investigator of Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is also an Associate Member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, as well as the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is best known for his discovery of several classes of epigenetic enzymes and the identification of epigenetic barriers of SCNT cloning.
Education.
Zhang received his B.Sc. and Master degrees in Biophysics from China Agricultural University in 1984 and 1987, respectively. He then received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics from Florida State University in 1995. From 1995 to 1999, He did his postdoctoral training in the lab of Danny Reinberg at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
Career and research.
Research.
Zhang has published more than 170 highly influential papers. These studies have been cited over 70,000 times (H-index 110), making him one of the top 10 authors of high impact papers in the fields of molecular biology and genetics (ScienceWatch 2008), and one of the "most influential scientific minds" (ScienceWatch 2014). He was also a Founder of Epizyme, and NewStem (Natick, MA). His current efforts are focused on the molecular mechanism of embryonic development & reprogramming, brain reward-related learning & memory, pancreatic cancer.
Zhang has made several landmark discoveries in the fields of epigenetics, chromatin and developmental reprogramming.