Dr. Bing Zhang is an Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator at the School of Life Sciences, Westlake University, a leading research-oriented institution in China. Before attaining his independent position in September 2020, Dr. Zhang worked as a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of Dr. Ya-Chieh Hsu at the Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology from 2015 to 2020, studying adult stem cells and tissue regeneration in the mammalian skin system. His research on the correlation between stress and gray hair has elucidated a crucial connection between sympathetic nerves and adult stem cells, and this work was recognized as one of the "10 remarkable discoveries from 2020" by Nature.

Dr. Bing Zhang received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University and his bachelor's degree from Shandong University. He was an awardee of the Charles A. King Trust Postdoctoral Fellowship and Harvard Distinction in Teaching Award. Dr. Zhang's current research interests focus on investigating how tissue regeneration is affected by systemic factors within the body and external environmental inputs, including stress, metabolism, and aging.

Adult stem cells play a central role in the regeneration and repair of our body systems. Using mammalian skin as a model system, we study the principles of cell-cell interactions among different cell types in development, regeneration and injury repair. Dr. Zhang’s academic achievements include

1. Identified a mechanism by which the growth of an epithelial tissue (the hair follicle) and a mesenchymal tissue (dermal adipocytes) can be coupled (Zhang et al., Gene and Development 2016), established a novel paradigm for studying the coupling of lineage behaviors in regeneration and diseases.

2. Identified a mechanism by which acute stress leads to a rapid depletion of melanocyte stem cells and hair graying (Zhang et al., Nature 2020), illustrated how an organismal-level neuronal activity can directly influence a tissue-level somatic stem cell population.

3. Developed new approaches and tools to study diverse cell types in the skin.

Our current research focus is to study

1. The mechanism and function of nerve–stem cell interaction;

2. How systemic factors of the body, such as stress and aging influence stem cell behaviors and tissue regeneration;

3. Mechanisms of mammalian skin and hair regeneration.

1. Bing Zhang, Sai Ma, Inbal Rachmin, Megan He, Pankaj Baral, Sekyu Choi, William A. Gonçalves, Yulia Shwartz, Eva M. Fast, Yiqun Su, Leonard I. Zon, Aviv Regev, Jason D. Buenrostro, Thiago M. Cunha, Isaac M. Chiu, David E. Fisher and Ya-Chieh Hsu (2020) Hyperactivation of Sympathetic Nerves Drives Melanocyte Stem Cell Depletion. Nature 577, 676–681.

2. Bing Zhang^# and Ting Chen^# (2023) Local and systemic mechanisms that control the hair follicle stem cell niche. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 2023 Oct 30. (# Corresponding authors)

3. Jingyu Peng, Han Chen and Bing Zhang (2022) Nerve–stem cell crosstalk in skin regeneration and diseases. Trends in Molecular Medicine Jul;28(7):583-595.

4. Bing Zhang*, Pai-Chi Tsai*, Meryem Gonzalez-Celeiro, Oliver Chung, Benjamin Boumard, Carolina N. Perdigoto, Elena Ezhkova and Ya-Chieh Hsu (2016) Hair Follicles’ Transit Amplifying Cells Govern Concurrent Dermal Adipocyte Production through Sonic Hedgehog. Genes and Development 30: 2325-2338 (*Co-first author).

5. Bing Zhang^#, Megan He, Inbal Rachmin, Xiaoling Yu, Seungtea Kim, David E Fisher and Ya-Chieh Hsu^#(2021) Melanocortin 1 receptor is dispensable for acute stress induced hair graying in mice. Experimental Dermatology Apr;30(4):572-577. (# Corresponding authors)

6. Sekyu Choi, Bing Zhang, Sai Ma, Meryem Gonzalez-Celeiro, Daniel Stein, Xin Jin, Seung Tea Kim, Yuan-Lin Kang, Antoine Besnard, Amelie Rezza, Laura Grisanti, Jason Buenrostro, Michael Rendl, Matthias Nahrendorf, Amar Sahay and Ya-Chieh Hsu (2021) The stress hormone corticosterone governs hair follicle stem cell quiescence by suppressing a dermal niche activator Gas6. Nature 592(7854), 428–432.

7. Sai Ma, Bing Zhang, Lindsay LaFave, Zachary Chiang, Yan Hu, Jiarui Ding, Alison Brack, Vinay K Kartha, Travis Law, Caleb Lareau, Ya-Chieh Hsu, Aviv Regev, Jason D Buenrostro (2020) Chromatin potential identified by shared single cell profiling of RNA and chromatin. Cell 183, 1103-1116.e20.

8. Yulia Shwartz, Meryem Gonzalez-Celeiro, Chih-Lung Chen, H. Amalia Pasolli, Shu-Hsien Sheu, Sabrina Mai-Yi Fan, Farnaz Shamsi, Steven Assaad, Edrick Tai-Yu Lin, Bing Zhang, Pai-Chi Tsai, Megan He, Yu-Hua Tseng, Sung-Jan Lin and Ya-Chieh Hsu (2020) Cell types promoting goosebumps form a niche to regulate hair follicle stem cells. Cell 182, 578-593.e19.

9. Bing Zhang and Ya-Chieh Hsu (2017) Emerging Roles of Transit-Amplifying Cells in Tissue Regeneration and Cancer. WIREs Developmental Biology 6: e282.

10. Bing Zhang, Lalith Gunawardane, Farshad Niazi, Fereshteh Jahanbani, Xin Chen and Saba Valadkhan (2014) A Novel RNA Motif Mediates the Nuclear Localization of a Long Non-Coding RNA. Molecular and Cell Biology 34: 2318-2329.

zhangbing@westlake.edu.cn

We currently have several openings for graduate students, research assistants & postdocs. Please submit your CV or resume through email if interested.