Si-he Zhang is a principal investigator of school of medicine in Nankai University. He got his Ph.D. in Fourth Military Medical University in 2004, and served as an associate professor next year. He did 3 years postdoctoral training in Lund University Hospital in Sweden. Then, he transferred to Nankai University and was appointed as the director of department of cell biology. His research mainly focuses on macromolecular drugs based cancer targeting therapy. He committed himself to (1) studying the regulation mechanism of intracellular endocytosis delivery, (2) engineering macromolecule drugs (especially new functional antibodies) for cancer therapy & biomarker discovery. He has published dozens of peer-reviewed papers in international journals, including Hepatology, PNAS, J Biol Chem, Cancer Immunol Immunother, etc. He also obtained 14 China invention patents. His studies are mainly supported by grants from National Key Technologies R & D Program of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China and Natural Science Found of Tianjin.
                                                                                             癌生物学与大分子药物实验室
                                                                   (Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Macromolecular Drugs)
Overview:
   The Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Macromolecular Drugs (LCBMD) supervise independent research programs with highly overlapping experimental goals and approaches. The current missions of LCBMD include: (1) understanding the endocytic regulation mechanism of macromolecule drugs, (2) engineering new functional antibody for cancer therapy & biomarker discovery.
Research Focus:
   Endocytosis encompasses highly complex and dynamic processes that cells use to allow entry of extracellular material. The utilization of these pathways for uptake and intracellular delivery of therapeutic macromolecules offers much potential in drug delivery. However, the effectiveness of this approach is constrained by the fact that the fate of the therapeutic within one of these pathways is predetermined by the dynamics of the pathway and biological barriers posed by endocytic membranes. Our group aims to better understand endocytic pathways of cells, to utilize specific pathways for cellular delivery of therapeutic macromolecules and to design peptides, antibodies and polymer conjugates for enhancing cytosolic delivery of therapeutics.
Research Keywords:
   Endocytosis; macromolecular drug delivery; targeted therapy; tumor/cancer;
Ongoing Projects:
• Determining the endocytic pathways and intracellular traffic of therapeutic macromolecules.
• Uncovering the mechanisms responsible for cell cycle-mediated endocytosis transition.
• Studying the roles of oncogenic GEFs to Rho and Rab GTPases in endocytosis pathways.
• Studying the mechanism of entry of cell penetrating peptides (CPP) and CPP-conjugates.
• Characterizing the derailed endocytosis rout and signaling in multidrug resistant cancer cells.
• Pharmacological manipulation of the uptake and delivery of tumor-targeted nanoparticles.
• Designing bioresponsive polymer-conjugates for delivery of therapeutic macromolecules.
• Developing new functional antibodies for biomarker discovery and hypoxic tumor targeting.
Open Positions:
   We always welcome anyone (including but not limited to undergraduates, graduates) who have energy, skills and especially fantastic ideas to join us at any time!
Contact Information:
   Si-he Zhang, PhD
   Department of Cell Biology, School of Medicine, Nankai University
   94 Weijin Road, Nankai District, Tianjin, 300071, P.R. China
   Tel: +86-22-23495226 (Lab);
   E-mail 1:  sihezhang@nankai.edu.cn;
   E-mail 2:  zsss2005@163.com