Academician ZHANG Xue, M.D., Ph.D

Academician ZHANG Xue, M.D., Ph.D

President Harbin Medical University

Professor and Chair of Medical Genetics McKusick-Zhang Center for Genetic Medicine Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College

Dr. Xue Zhang is a professor of medical genetics at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College (CAMS & PUMC). He got a medical degree in 1986, received a master degree in medical genetics in 1989, and obtained a PhD in cell biology in 1994, all from China Medical University located in the Shenyang city of China. He subsequently did his postdoctoral training in cancer genetics at the University of Pennsylvania and at Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School. In 1998, he was appointed as the department head of cell biology at China Medical University. In 2001, he was recruited by CAMS & PUMC to serve as the chairman of the Department of Medical Genetics. He became the scientific director of the McKusick-Zhang Center for Genetic Medicine at CAMS & PUMC in 2004 and the director of the Laboratory of Clinical Genetics at PUMC Hospital in 2012. From April 2017 to September 2018, he served as the vice president for research and graduate affairs of CAMS & PUMC. In October 2018, he was appointed as the president of Harbin Medical University. After moving to CAMS & PUMC, Dr. Zhang switched his research interest to the molecular basis of Mendelian disorders. He has discovered the disease genes for several monogenic disorders, including familial acne inversa, Marie Unna hereditary hypotrichosis, familial idiopathic basal ganglia calcification and syndactyly type V, and identified the pathogenic genomic rearrangements for congenital generalized hypertrichosis terminalis, X-linked congenital hypertrichosis syndrome and syndactyly type IV. Dr. Zhang serves as the president of the Chinese Society of Medical Genetics from 2013 to 2016. He had been on the editorial board of eight international journals, including the American Journal of Human Genetics, Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, Journal of Medical Genetics, Clinical Genetics, and Journal of Investigative Dermatology. Dr. Zhang was elected as a member of the Chinese Academy Engineering in 2019