Ningyan Zhang

Dr. Ningyan Zhang is a Professor at the IMM-Texas Therapeutics Institute (TTI) and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at McGovern Medical School, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). She serves as Co-Director of both the Antibody Engineering Center and the CPRIT Core for Advanced Cancer Antibody Drug Modalities.

Dr. Zhang earned her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Kentucky and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining UTHealth in 2010, she spent over 15 years in drug discovery research within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Her educational background includes an MS in Biology from Hebei Agricultural University and a BS in Biology from Shanxi Agricultural University.

Dr. Zhang's research focuses on understanding mechanisms of cancer immune evasion to develop improved immunotherapies, with particular emphasis on antibody drug resistance mechanisms, biomarkers for therapeutic antibodies, and antibody response to viral infection and vaccination. Her laboratory has demonstrated the prevalence of proteolytic impairment of antibody Fc effector function in the tumor microenvironment, showing that antibodies like trastuzumab and pertuzumab with hinge cleavage lose immune effector function against cancer cells. Her team employs advanced experimental approaches including 2D and 3D cell co-cultures, mouse tumor models, clinical samples analysis, high content fluorescence imaging, mass spectrometry, and fluorescence activated cell sorting.

Analysis of Dr. Zhang's recent publications reveals a strong focus on cancer immunology, antibody therapeutics, and tumor microenvironment research. Her work spans multiple disease areas including breast cancer, ovarian cancer, acute myeloid leukemia, and neurodegenerative diseases. The publications demonstrate her expertise in antibody engineering, with significant contributions to understanding antibody dysfunction in tumor microenvironments and developing novel therapeutic approaches.

• Inventor of more than 30 patents on antibody therapeutics
• Development of platform technologies for discovery of therapeutic antibodies
• Advanced 5 first-in-class drug candidates into clinical trials for diseases ranging from acute myeloid leukemia to breast cancer bone metastasis
• Five additional drug candidates in preclinical development including PRTH-101 which blocks T-cell exclusion in the tumor microenvironment

Dr. Zhang's laboratory has established a monoclonal antibody platform technology for discovering and selecting novel anticancer antibodies. Her research has resulted in over 150 publications in highly competitive journals including Nature, Nature Communications, Cell Metabolism, and Science Advances. She collaborates extensively with researchers across multiple institutions and has advanced several drug candidates into clinical development. Her laboratory utilizes state-of-the-art technologies including high content fluorescence imaging, mass spectrometry, and single cell cloning of antibodies to investigate factors influencing proteolytic impairment and mechanisms of cancer immune evasion.