Welcome to The Zhang Lab

The Zhang laboratory promotes research and technologies that advance the development of effective vaccines against infectious diseases.  By constructing isogenic strains and examining virulence in animals (including germ-free animals), we understand disease mechanisms, determine the significance of individual virulence factors, identify virulence determinants, and select vaccine antigen targets.  By integrating structural biology and computational biology tools and combining structural vaccinology and epitope vaccinology concepts, we invent an epitope- and structure-based vaccinology platform termed multiepitope-fusion-antigen (MEFA), apply MEFA technology to construct broadly immunogenic polyvalent immunogens, and develop cross-protective cellular and acellular multivalent vaccines.  Additionally, this laboratory develops animal models, applies various animal models for vaccine candidate pre-clinical efficacy studies, and optimizes protocols and analytical assays for vaccine development.