Summary
Youming Zhang is an Asmarley Lecturer in Respiratory Genomics and the Head of Functional Genomics Group of Genomic Medicine Section in National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London.
Dr Zhang was trained as a physician from Tong Ji Medical University, China. He had further clinical and research training and obtained a Master degree in Medicine from Peking Union Medical College. He then worked as a Clinical Research Fellow in Paediatrics at Beijing Children’s Hospital. He was awarded K.C Wong scholarship and ORS from the University of Oxford that allowed him to study a DPhil at Oxford Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics. His doctoral work was on mapping quantitative traits loci (QTL) of asthma in mice After completing his DPhil study in 1999, Dr Zhang began to work on the positional cloning of the asthma locus on human chromosome 13, and eventually cloned PHF11/SETDB2 genes as asthma suspected genes. In 2006, Dr Zhang was appointed as a Research Council UK Fellow at Imperial College London. This fellowship allowed him the autonomy to develop his work on asthma genetics in mice and human. Consequently, he established a conditional knockout mouse program to dissect the newly identified asthma gene ORMDL3. He also established two mutagenesis mouse lines of PHF11 and DPP10. In addition, he also led to establish the cell model to investigate the global gene regulation during immunoglobulin class switch recombination in human B cells.
Dr Zhang focuses his work on the function of the novel genes in respiratory diseases. Recently, the group defined the function roles of polymorphisms of asthma novel genes. The group applies state-of-art genomics approaches such as siRNA, gene overexpression, global gene expression profiling, RNA sequencing, ChIP sequencing and metabolite screening to dissect the pathways of the novel genes in disease path-physiology. Recently Dr Zhang has established ORMDL3 knockout and GSDMB knockout epithelial cell lines. The platforms provide powerful resources to dissect their functions for sphingolipids metabolism, cell stress, glycolysis, human rhinovirus infection and pyroptosis in inflammatory response.
Dr Zhang also actively collaborates with physicians and scientists nationally and internationally. At Imperial College, he collaborates with Dr Charlotte Dean, Professor Kazuhiro Ito, Professor Daqing Ma, Professors William Cookson, Professor Miriam Moffatt and Professor Clare Lloyd to dissect the functional roles of the interested genes. He collaborates with Dr David Fear at King’s College London to identify the regulation genes in Immunoglobulin class switching.
Dr Zhang is a visiting professor for Shenzhen Medical School, Shenzhen University, PR China and Xiangyan Hospital, Zhongnan University, Hunan, PR China.
Dr Zhang is an academic tutor for MBBS students at Imperial College. He also works as a member of BMB Core Faculty group at the college.
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
Zhang Y, 2021, Orosomucoid-like protein 3, rhinovirus and asthma, World Journal of Critical Care Medicine, Vol:10, ISSN:2220-3141, Pages:170-182
Zhang Y, Willis-Owen S, Spiegel, et al., 2019, The ORMDL3 asthma gene regulates ICAM1 and has multiple effects on cellular inflammation, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Vol:199, ISSN:1073-449X, Pages:478-488
Liu Y, Zhang M, Lou L, et al., 2019, IRAK-1 M associates with susceptibility to adult-onset asthma and promotes chronic airway inflammation, Journal of Immunology, Vol:202, ISSN:1550-6606, Pages:899-911
Cheng H, Yan D, Zuo X, et al., 2018, A retrospective investigation of HLA-B*5801 in hyperuricemia patients in a Han population of China, Pharmacogenetics and Genomics, Vol:28, ISSN:1744-6872, Pages:117-124
Zhang Y, Poobalasingam T, Yates LL, et al., 2018, Manipulation of Dipeptidylpeptidase 10 in mouse and human in vivo and in vitro models indicates a protective role in asthma, Disease Models & Mechanisms, Vol:11, ISSN:1754-8403
Zhang M, Lin S, Xiao W, et al., 2017, Applications of single-cell sequencing for human lung cancer: the progress and the future perspective, Aims Biophysics, Vol:4, ISSN:2377-9098, Pages:210-221
Zhang Y, Fear D, Willis-Owen S, et al., 2016, Global gene regulation during activation of immunoglobulin class switching in human B cells, Scientific Reports, Vol:6, ISSN:2045-2322
Löser S, Gregory LG, Zhang Y, et al., 2016, Pulmonary ORMDL3 is critical for induction of Alternaria induced allergic airways disease, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Vol:139, ISSN:1097-6825, Pages:1496-1507.e3
Chapters
Zhang Y, 2018, Gene expression during the activation of human B cells, Gene Expression and Regulation in Mammalian Cells - Transcription From General Aspects, Editor(s): Uchiumi, Rijeka, Croatia, InTechOpen, ISBN:978-953-51-3856-3