湛昌国教授简介

Professor Chang-Guo Zhan received a Ph.D. in Chemistry (Physical Chemistry) from University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in Science (Molecular Physics) from The Graduate University of Advanced Studies (Institute for Molecular Science (IMS), Japan). He performed his postdoctoral research training as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Department of Medicine, Columbia University. Prior to his appointment at University of Kentucky, he was an Associate Research Scientist at Department of Medicine, Columbia University and a Visiting Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at the same time.

Dr. Zhan's main research interest is development and combined use of a variety of state-of-the-art computational approaches to quantum chemistry (QM), QM/MM, molecular dynamics (MD), Monte Carlo, and statistical analysis for studying complex chemical/biochemical/biomedical problems, with the focus on biological targets (protein, DNA, and RNA) with ligands, enzymatic reaction mechanisms, structure/mechanism-based drug design, and rational enzyme redesign for development of new medication. Dr. Zhan's lab may perform whatever types of molecular modeling (including homology modeling and molecular docking), simulation (e.g. MD and Monte Carlo), calculations (e.g. QM, QM/MM, and free energy perturbation etc.), and analysis (including QSAR and Artificial Neural Network) that are necessary for solving an interested biochemical/biomedical problem. Dr. Zhan's lab also develops multi-scale computational approaches for studying some very complex biological systems that are difficult to solve by simply using existing computational techniques.

The ultimate goal of the research in Dr. Zhan's lab is to develop novel medications for various diseases and drug addiction problems through rational design, although most computational methods developed in the lab can be used as general computational tools for studying other chemical and biochemical problems. The designed drugs are either small molecules as inhibitors of some specific enzymes or engineered proteins (mutants). The computational design is followed by wet experimental test either in Dr. Zhan's own laboratory or in collaborators' laboratories. Dr. Zhan's unique "structure-and-mechanism-based drug design and discovery" efforts through integrated computational-experimental studies (supported by NIH) have been very productive, leading to exciting discovery of novel, promising therapeutics. The members of Dr. Zhan's lab work in an interdisciplinary research environment in close collaboration with internal and external experimental/computational groups. Some of Dr. Zhan's research work was highlighted as IEEE magazine news.

Dr. Zhan has published ~170 papers in peer-reviewed journals and services as Advisory Editor of Theoretical Chemistry Accounts (a renowned journal). He has been a member of NIH grant panel review committee in the "Drug Discovery and Development" study section (BCMB-L) and was the Winner of 2005 Emerging Computational Technology Prize, American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Computers in Chemistry (received during the Fall 2005 ACS meeting, Washington DC, August 28 to September 1, 2005;