Education:

1999-2023 Nanjing University School of Life Science. B.Sc.

2005-2010 Albany Medical College (U.S.) Ph.D.

Professional Positions:

2010-2014 Department of Molecular Biology Postdoctoral researcher

Princeton University

2014-2016 Department of Molecular Biology Associate research scholar

Princeton University

2016-2019 School of Medicine Tenure-track assistant professor

Tsinghua University

2020-2023 School of Medicine Tenure-track associate professor

Tsinghua University

2024- School of Basic Medical Sciences Associate professor (tenured)

Tsinghua University

Research Areas:

Cancer has become the leading cause of patient death in many countries, with distant tissue metastasis and the occurrence of drug resistance being the primary reasons for mortality. The tumor microenvironment (the normal tissue structure and cells surrounding the tumor) significantly influences cancer metastasis and drug resistance. Therefore, understanding the key molecular mechanisms of metastatic tumor microenvironments and drug resistance is of great value for elucidating cancer pathogenesis and discovering new therapeutic targets. Our laboratory aims to reveal the important functions of the tumor microenvironment in metastasis and drug resistance through advanced mouse models, bioinformatics analysis, and molecular and cellular biology techniques. The microenvironmental interacting cells of focus in our laboratory include osteoblasts, osteoclasts, macrophages, T cells, and NK cells.

Our previous work identified the E3 ubiquitin ligases for SNAIL and SLUG (SNAI2), important transcription factors which promote cancer cell invasion and metastasis, by developing a dual-fluorescein labeling system (Cancer Cell, 2014; Genes & Dev., 2020). In addition, we studied the function of JAGGED1, one of the major ligands for Notch signaling pathway, revealing that JAGGED1 promotes the secretion of important cytokines, recruits macrophages, and helps tumor cells escape T cell-mediated killing (Cell Reports, 2022); We have discovered several molecules that play important roles in the early colonization of bone metastasis and therapeutic resistance, including JAGGED1, Lymphotoxin-β, and metabolic molecule glutamine (Cancer Cell, 2017; Nature Cell Biology, 2024; Cancer Research, 2024).

Honors and Awards:

2018 Young Talent Group of National 1000 plan

2018 Bayer-Tsinghua Investigator Award

2016 Travel Award for Young Investigators, Metastasis Research Society

2014 Gallo Award for Scientific Excellence, New Jersey State Commission on Cancer Research

2011 Komen for the Cure Postdoctoral Fellowship Award

Selected Publications:

1. Wang X^*, Zhang T^*, Zheng B^*, Lu Y, Liang Y, Xu G, Zhao L, Tao Y, Song Q, You H, Hu H, Li X, Sun K, Li T, Zhang Z, Wang J, Lan X, Pan D, Fu YX, Yue B^#, Zheng H^# (2024) Lymphotoxin-β Promotes Bone Colonization and Osteolytic Outgrowth of Indolent Bone Metastatic cells of Breast Cancer (Nature Cell Biology, accepted)

2. Fan H^*, Xu Z^*, Yao K^*, Zheng B^*, Zhang Y, Wang X, Zhang T, Li X, Hu H, Yue B ^#, Hu Z^#, Zheng H^# (2024) Osteoclast-Cancer Cell Metabolic Crosstalk Confers PARP Inhibitor Resistance in Bone Metastatic Breast Cancer, Cancer Research, https://doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-23-1443

3. Li X^*, Zhang Y, Zhang T, Zhao L, Lin CG, Hu H, Zheng H^# (2024) Tafazzin Mediates Tamoxifen Resistance by Regulating Cellular Phospholipid Composition in ER-Positive Breast Cancer. Cancer Gene Therapy, (2023) https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.08.15.553336

4. Meng J.^*; Jiang Y.-Z.; Zhao S.; Tao Y.; Zhang T.; Wang X.; Zhang Y.; Sun K.; Yuan M.; Chen J.; Wei Y.; Lan X.; Chen M.; David C.J.; Chang Z.; Guo X.; Pan D.; Chen M.; Shao Z.-M.*; Kang Y.*; Zheng H.* (2022) Tumor-derived Jagged1 promotes cancer progression through immune evasion, Cell Reports, 38(10): 110492.doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.110492.

5. Fan H.^*; Wang X.; Li W.; Shen M.; Wei Y.; Zheng H.*; Kang Y.* (2020) ASB13 inhibits breast cancer metastasis through promoting SNAI2 degradation and relieving its transcriptional repression of YAP, Genes & Development, 34(19-20): 1359-1372 (co-corresponding author)

6. Zheng H^*, Bae Y^*, Kasimir-bauer S, Tang R, Chen J, Ren G, Yuan M, Esposito M, Li W, Wei Y, Shen M, Zhang L, Tupitsyn N, Pantel K, King C, Sun J, Moriguchi J, Jun HT, Coxon A, Lee B^#, Kang Y^# (2017) Therapeutic Antibody Targeting Tumor- and Osteoblastic Niche-Derived Jagged1 Sensitizes Bone Metastasis to Chemotherapy Cancer Cell, 32(6): 731-47 e6 PMID: 29232552

7. Zheng H^*, Shen M, Cha Y-L, Li W, Wei Y, Blanco MA, Ren G, Zhou T, Storz P, Wang H-Y, and Kang Y^# (2014) PKD1 phosphorylation-dependent degradation of SNAIL by SCF-FBXO11 regulates epithelial-mesenchymal transition and metastasis. Cancer Cell, 26(3): 358-73. PMID: 25203322

For complete publication list: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8062-1215