Rate My Professor Dong Zhang

Professor Xu Dong Zhang is a Professor in the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Newcastle. He obtained his PhD in medicine from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sydney. After completing his doctorate, he conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Sydney and the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto, Canada. In 2001, he joined the University of Newcastle, establishing and leading the Melanoma Immunology Laboratory. Currently, he holds the position of Co-Director of the Priority Research Centre for Cancer Research, Innovation and Translation, and serves as Deputy Director of the Cancer Research Program at the Hunter Medical Research Institute. His academic career has been dedicated to advancing understanding of cancer biology, with a particular emphasis on melanoma.

Professor Zhang's research specializations encompass the molecular mechanisms driving melanoma progression and therapy resistance, including the roles of RIP1 kinase in cell survival, long non-coding RNAs in tumorigenesis and cancer diagnosis, reactive oxygen species in apoptosis, and targeted therapeutic strategies such as BRAF/MEK inhibitors. He has authored or co-authored over 400 publications, with key works including 'LncRNA REG1CP promotes tumorigenesis through an enhancer complex with EZH2/Myc' (Nature Communications, 2019), 'RIP1 kinase is an oncogenic driver in melanoma' (Cancer Research, 2015), 'Small Molecular Weight Variants of p53 Are Expressed in Human Melanoma Cells and Mediate Multidrug Resistance' (Clinical Cancer Research, 2008), and 'SNORD80-guided 2'-O-methylation stabilizes the lncRNA GAS5 to promote cancer progression' (2024). His scholarship has attracted more than 22,957 citations. Professor Zhang has received prestigious funding, such as a $2.3 million NHMRC grant in 2022 for exploring long noncoding RNAs in cancer, and nearly $675,000 from Cancer Council NSW in 2015 for investigating RIP1 as a therapeutic target in melanoma, underscoring his substantial impact on oncology research.