Yan Zhang

Yan Zhang is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, affiliated with the College of Biomedical and Translational Sciences and the Department of Microbiology, Immunology & Genetics. His research focuses on the interaction between the microbiome and host health/disease, particularly in tick-borne diseases, phenylketonuria, Alzheimer’s, and post-injury inflammation.

Education: He holds a PhD in Microbiology from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Additional degrees include a BS and MS in Microbiological Pharmaceutics and Microbiology & Biochem Pharm from Shenyang Pharmaceutical University.

Research Interests:
- Host-microbiome interactions in disease development
- Genomic/metagenomic approaches for microbiome analysis
- Tick microbiome and human disease-associated microbiomes
- Development of bioinformatics tools for metagenomic analysis

Projects:
- UNTHSC Early Stage Investigator Project (2023–2024): Investigating the role of gut microbiome in Lyme arthritis (Principal Investigator).
- Rapid Characterization of Microbial Community Structure (2017–2018): Analyzing floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey.
- Principles of Sorghum halepense Invasiveness (2017–2018): Ecological studies on invasive species.

Labs/Services: Provides Next-Generation Sequencing (IonTorrent, MiSeq) and bioinformatics tools for metagenomic analysis.