SMART Fellow
Principal Investigator
Cell Biology
min.zheng@szbl.ac.cn
2021 - Present Shenzhen Bay Laboratory Junior Principal Investigator
2017 - 2021 St Jude Children's Research Hospital Postdoctoral Fellow
2015 - 2017The University of Hong Kong Postdoctoral Fellow
2011 - 2015 The University of Hong Kong Ph.D.
2006 - 2010Harbin Institute of Technology B.S
Explore pathogen infection induced programmed cell death, including apoptosis, pyroptosis and necroptosis; Investigate pathogen infection induced inflammasome activation; Study the danger associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) released during respiratory virus infection.
Dr. Zheng has been focusing on the pathogen infection and innate immune responses. So far, he has published 18 papers, including first author or co-first author papers published in Cell (2020), Nature Immunology (2021), Immunological Reviews (2020), mBio (2019). Besides, he published 4 papers as a co-author in Cell, Lancet, and Nature Communication. All his papers have more than 3300 citations. In addition, he got two US patents.
- Dr. Zheng found that caspase-6 is involved in influenza virus induced programmed cell death and inflammasome activation. In addition, it is critical for host defense against influenza virus infection.
- Recently, Dr. Zheng has identified that the Envelope protein of SARS-CoV-2 is a critical inflammation inducer, which can be sensed by TLR2 and trigger strong inflammatory responses.
Zheng M., Karki R., Williams E. P., Yang D., Fitzpatrick E., Vogel P., Jonsson C. B., & Kanneganti T.D., TLR2 senses the SARS-CoV-2 envelope protein to produce inflammatory cytokines. Nature Immunology. 2021 May 07;22(7):829-838.
Zheng M., Karki R., Vogel P., & Kanneganti T.D., Caspase-6 is a key regulator of innate immunity, inflammasome activation, and host defense. Cell. 2020 Apr 30;181(3):674-687.
Zheng M., Williams E.P., Malireddi R.K.S., Karki R., et al., (2020). Impaired NLRP3 inflammasome activation/pyroptosis leads to robust inflammatory cell death via caspase-8/RIPK3 during coronavirus infection. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 2020 Oct 9;295(41):14040-14052.
Zheng M. & Kanneganti T.D., The regulation of the ZBP1-NLRP3 inflammasome and its implications in pyroptosis, apoptosis, and necroptosis (PANoptosis). Immunological Reviews. 2020 Sep;297(1):26-38.
Wang P.*, Zheng M.*, Lau S.Y., Chen P., Mok, B.W., Liu S., et al., Generation of DelNS1 influenza viruses: a strategy for optimizing live attenuated influenza vaccines. mBio. (co-first author). 2019 Sep 17;10(5):e02180-19.
