Profile of the month
Zhang Yongliang
PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Affliations:
Email: miczy@nus.edu.sg
Tel: 6516 6407
Research Interest
We are interested in signal transduction pathways that regulate innate and adaptive immune responses, and how dysregulated signalling leads to pathological outcomes, such as inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. We have shown that members of a protein family called MAPK phosphatase (MKP), also known as dual specificity phosphatase (DUSP), play important roles in innate and adaptive immune responses. Currently, we are focusing on understanding the function of various MKPs/DUSPs in physiological and pathophysiological conditions including microbial infection, obesity and obesity-associated metabolic disorders, and cancer. We use multiple approaches, including gene overexpression, knockdown and knockout, and respective animal models, as well as human studies to achieve the goals. Our long term goal is to translate the findings from these studies to develop therapeutic interventions to improve patient outcomes.