Current Synthetic and Systems Biology
Open Access

Haitao Zhang

Biography

Upon completion of his doctorate in Experimental Pathology at the State University of New York at Buffalo and Roswell Park Cancer Institute in 2000, Dr. Zhang joined the Department of Pharmacology and Experiment Therapeutics at Roswell Park as postdoctoral fellow, working in the laboratory of Dr. Margot Ip to study the mechanism of TNFα suppression of the functional differentiation of mammary epithelial cells.  From 2001 to 2002, he worked at the Microarray and Genomics Core Facility at Roswell Park as a bioinformatics specialist. During this period, he collaborated with bench scientists to identify molecular targets of chemoprevention in prostate cancer using a bioinformatics data mining approach. Through this collaboration, Dr. Zhang developed an interest in prostate cancer research.  He joined the Department of Cancer Chemoprevention at Roswell Park in 2003 as a research scientist and became an independent investigator in 2005. He joined the faculty of Tulane University Health Sciences Center in 2008 as an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Dr. Zhang is also a member of the Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium.

Research Interest

Theme of his research program is to develop effective therapeutic strategies for CRPC to reduce prostate cancer mortality. Revolving around this main topic, one ongoing study is to use natural and synthetic compounds in a preclinical setting to target both androgen receptor (AR) and Akt signaling pathways in CRPC. Another ongoing study is to elucidate the role of the AR signaling axisin the chemoresistance in advanced prostate cancer. Also interested in understanding the nucleocytoplasmic trafficking mechanisms of AR splice variants and the therapeutic implications.