Our Team

Biography

Yuxia Zhang, Ph.D., is a Research Scientist and PhD Supervisor, and currently serves as the Chief Investigator at the Women and Children’s Medical Center of Guangzhou Medical University. Recognized as a national leader in pediatric immunology, she has been awarded prestigious honors including the Guangzhou "Leading Medical Talent”, Guangdong Province "Pearl River Scholar" Distinguished Professor, and the Distinguished Scholar of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. She holds a Ph.D. from the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and conducted postdoctoral and senior research at world-leading institutions such as the University of Cambridge and the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of the University of Melbourne.

Throughout her career, Dr. Zhang has secured over 35 million RMB in competitive research funding, spanning international, national, and provincial grants. Her portfolio includes major awards from the Australian NHMRC and U.S. JDRF during her appointment abroad, and since returning to China, she has successfully led over ten major national and provincial projects, including the National Outstanding Youth Science Fund, Key Programs of the NSFC, and Guangzhou National Laboratory Special Projects.

Her systematic research program has made landmark contributions to understanding and treating childhood immune-related diseases. Her foundational work on type 1 diabetes led to the discovery of key immune regulators like CD52 and TIGIT and the development of a therapeutic CD52-Fc fusion protein. After returning to China, she established a unified research framework linking mucosal immunity to systemic regulation, with transformative discoveries across multiple organ systems: she revealed the "IFN-I–Hepcidin–Iron" axis driving neonatal liver failure in biliary atresia and pioneered a folic acid supplementation therapy now in clinical use; identified PDE inhibitor as a novel treatment for pediatric inflammatory bowel disease; uncovered the role of pulmonary tertiary lymphoid structures in severe pneumonia and EGPA, defining the specific "IFN-I–granulocyte–autoimmunity" axis in EGPA pathogenesis; and identified novel disease-causing genes (UNC93B1, REXO2) and pathways (MCM8–mitophagy) in systemic autoimmune and autoinflammatory disorders like SLE and Kawasaki disease. Her work consistently bridges fundamental mechanism discovery to diagnostic and therapeutic innovation.

As a dedicated mentor, Dr. Zhang has cultivated a generation of independent scientific leaders. She has directly supervised numerous doctoral and master’s students, and her trainees have secured prestigious positions and awards, including the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars, national high-level talent grants, and principal investigator roles at leading institutions. Under her guidance, her team has published over 50 high-impact papers in journals such as Cell, Nature Immunology, and Immunity, demonstrating her exceptional ability to foster rigorous, independent, and translationally-oriented research.