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Biography
Dr. Zhong received her MS and MD degrees at the Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Sciences, and her PhD and post-doctoral training in Nutrition, Hepatology and Toxicology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Following her initial faculty appointment at UNC, she joined MUSC’s Department of Drug Discovery & Biomedical Sciences of College of Pharmacy, with affiliated appointments at the Hollings Cancer Center and the College of Graduate Studies at the Medical University of South Carolina. An experienced investigator, she serves on numerous journal editorial boards and has been a member of several NIH review panels.
Dr. Zhong’s research interest includes both basic and translational research on hepatology and toxicology, especially on the roles of free radicals and mitochondrial dysfunction in liver injury, inflammation and fibrosis. She has a long-standing interest in the pathogenesis of alcoholic and non-alcoholic liver disease, and the mechanisms by which hepatic steatosis exacerbates hepatic ischemia/reperfusion injury. Research efforts in the Zhong lab have been facilitated by their substantial hands-on experience in the induction of fatty livers by dietary and alcohol treatment, and their familiarity with many techniques that are needed for this study, e.g. in vivo gene delivery by viral vectors, isolated liver perfusion, liver pathology, immunohistochemistry, and imaging technology. In particular, Dr. Zhong and her lab has done extensive work in adopting confocal/multiphoton microscopic techniques to in vivo studies of mitochondrial dysfunction. Application of this state-of-the-art technology has allowed them to directly visualize the changes of mitochondria and other organelle in living animals, and has led to many fundamental new findings in liver disease pathogenesis.
Current research focuses on the relationship of mitochondrial depolarization, mitophagy and the release of mitochondrial damage-associated molecules in the genesis of alcoholic liver disease, and the early stages of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease/steatohepatitis (NAFLD/NASH).