Affiliation: Shanghai Tech University, School of Life Science and Technology

Shiping Zhang is working as a Research Assistant Professor at the School of Life Science and Technology at Shanghai Tech University. She obtained her PhD from Tongji University in 2015 and conducted her postdoctoral research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Currently, her work focuses on the regulatory role of autophagy in neurodegenerative diseases. Using Drosophila and mouse models, she identified the Parkinson’s disease (PD) risk factor, the Cyclin-G-Associated kinase/dAuxilin, as a new regulator of autophagy initiation in glia, dysregulation of which contributes to PD-like symptoms. Through her studies, she aims to elucidate the molecular mechanism of autophagy in protein aggregate degradation and neurodegeneration.