Rate My Professor Jiang Zhu

Jiang Zhu is Professor in the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at Scripps Research, holding joint appointments in Immunology and Microbiology and the Skaggs Graduate School of Chemical and Biological Sciences. He received a B.S. in Biology in 1998 and a Ph.D. in Computational Biology in 2002, both from the University of Science and Technology of China. From 2002 to 2009, he worked as a Research Associate at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University. Subsequently, from 2009 to 2013, he served as Staff Scientist and Co-Head of the Structural Bioinformatics section at the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. In 2013, Zhu joined Scripps Research as Assistant Professor with joint appointments in Immunology and Microbial Science and Integrative Structural and Computational Biology, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2017, and currently holds the rank of Professor.

His research program combines computational modeling and experimental validation to address key biomedical challenges. Primary areas include antibody discovery using next-generation sequencing, scFv phage libraries, and computational tools for B-cell repertoire analysis; rational vaccine design via structural modeling and nanoparticle engineering for viruses like HIV-1, respiratory syncytial virus, metapneumovirus, influenza A, Ebola virus, SARS-CoV-2, hepatitis C virus, and Zika; and structure-function studies of macromolecular complexes using cryo-EM and other techniques. Key publications encompass "Rational design of uncleaved prefusion-closed trimer vaccines for human respiratory syncytial virus and metapneumovirus" (Nature Communications, 2024), "Single-Component Multilayered Self-Assembling Protein Nanoparticles Displaying Extracellular Domains of Matrix Protein 2 as a Pan-influenza A Vaccine" (ACS Nano, 2023), "Single-component multilayered self-assembling protein nanoparticles presenting glycan-trimmed uncleaved prefusion optimized envelope trimers as HIV-1 vaccine candidates" (Nature Communications, 2023), Ebola virus vaccines (Nature Communications, 2021), and SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates (Science Advances, 2021). Zhu has been honored with National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Merit Awards in 2010, 2011, and 2012 for vaccine development contributions. His innovations have yielded promising vaccine candidates advancing to preclinical and clinical stages, significantly impacting prophylactic strategies against infectious diseases.