Jifeng Zhang, PhD

Dr. Jifeng Zhang is an associate professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Michigan. He is among the first group of researchers to develop and use the ZFN, TALEN, and CRISPR/Cas9 technologies to generate gene knock-out and knock-in animal models, including mice, rabbits, and pigs, for translational research. His team has contributed over 30 rabbit models to date, including MPO, TRIM5, ADCY9, CETP, ApoBEC1, IDOL, apoAII, apoE, and ApoCIII KO, to name just a few, made available to the community for translational medicine and drug development in various fields of human disease study. At the same time, his team is always trying to improve the gene-editing system. They are the first to report that enhancing the homologous recombination (HR) pathway by small-molecule RS-1 can significantly increase the Cas9 and TALEN mediated gene knock-in efficiency in rabbit embryos. Currently, his team is continually focusing on improving the Cas9-mediated gene editing efficiency through further engineering the HDR motif of mi-Cas9. His work also unraveled differences in the genome of rabbits from the three different laboratory lines through whole-genome sequencing and transcriptomics that have contributed to better understand the similarities between human and rabbit lipid metabolism and to drive the generation of genome-editing rabbit models.