Zhang,ZhengJenny  

Zheng Jenny Zhang   is the Director of Comprehensive Transplant Center Microsurgery Core and a Professor of Surgery (Research) in Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Zhang received her MD in 1983 from Tongji Medical University (TMU) in Wuhan, China, completed five years of surgical resident training in Tongji Hospital, the 2nd teaching hospital of TMU in 1988, and subsequently became an attending surgeon specialized transplant surgery and a lecturer at the same hospital. During her residency, she also received a Master of Science Degree (M.Sc.) in transplant immunology at the same university in 1988 and as one of the youngest investigators in the year, she received a research award by Chinese National Nature Science Foundation for her research in the field of organ transplantation. To further career develop, she took a challenging yet exciting research opportunity in Canada and began her research training in the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada in the early 1990s. After three-year postdoctoral training, she had worked there as a junior faculty (instructor/lecturer) for approximate four years before she was recruited as a faculty member by Northwestern University, Chicago, USA in 1998.

Zhang has more than 30 years of experience in transplant immunology and experimental microsurgery. Her research interest has revolved around developing and utilizing small animal transplant models to address critical questions relevant to the field of organ transplantation, specifically to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying rejection responses and immune regulations. She successfully developed and characterized mouse transplant models including mouse kidney and small bowel transplantation. These models have been widely used for extensive studies on transplant immunology and potential therapeutic strategies in the prevention of rejection. She has been a PI or co-Investigator on internal and external grants including NIH and industry-funded grants and has published numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals and multiple book chapters and reviews articles as a first author/co-author/senior author. In addition, she has served as an invited speaker or a chair/moderator at multiple research seminars in the national and international conferences and has been an reviewer for the American Transplant Congress, an annual meeting of American Transplant Society and American Society of Transplant Surgeons and for multiple scientific journals (AJT, Frontiers Immunology, Transplant International, etc ) since 2010. Zhang has been a Member/Councilor since 2000, and the treasurer for the International Society of Experimental Microsurgery since 2016.