Yan Zhao

Yan Zhao is an Associate Professor and Doctoral Supervisor in the Department of Neurobiology at the School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech). She received her bachelor’s and Ph.D. from Peking University Health Science Center, followed by postdoctoral research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and UMass Medical School. Her work focuses on autophagy mechanisms in neural cells and their implications for neurodegenerative diseases and viral infections.

• Education: Peking University Health Science Center (B.S., Ph.D.)
• Postdocs: Chinese Academy of Sciences, UMass Medical School

Research Interests:

• Molecular role of metazoan-specific autophagy proteins
• ER-autophagosome interactions in membrane dynamics
• Therapeutic targets for neurodegeneration
• Double-membrane vesicle formation in coronaviruses

Scientific Contributions include Cell, Molecular Cell, and Current Biology publications. She received the NSFC Outstanding Young Scientist Fund.

Teaching includes Introduction to Life Sciences and Principles of Biology. She leads a laboratory in Research Building 2, Room 315, with active recruitment for postdocs, research assistants, and graduate students.