Experimental Therapeutics Institute

Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD
Co-Director of the Experimental Therapeutics Institute, Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professor and Chairman of the Department of Structural and Chemical Biology, and Professor of Oncological Sciences and of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics

Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, is developing a new generation of therapeutic drugs that will revolutionize patient care. As Co-Director of the Experimental Therapeutics Institute, he directs cutting-edge basic and translational research programs designed to create new drugs and intellectual property.

Supported by a strong faculty in a broad spectrum of biomedical research fields, Mount Sinai's integrated research programs address small-molecule drug discovery, biological therapeutics, therapeutic vaccine development, target validation and side effects, and preclinical testing. Experimental Therapeutics Institute investigators conduct scientific and commercial assessments of promising research and technology, perform preclinical testing, and foster commercial relationships with pharmaceutical and medical device companies.

An international leader in structural and chemical biology as well as molecular and cell biology, Dr. Zhou takes innovative approaches to understanding biological processes that have led to a greater understanding of what triggers disease. His research unravels fundamental molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying signal transduction and regulation of gene transcription and translation, which aid in the discovery of more-targeted treatments.

An active teacher in both the classroom and the laboratory, Dr. Zhou is Director of the Translational Chemical Biology Center, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Structural and Chemical Biology, and Professor of Oncological Sciences as well as Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics. Among his many accomplishments at Mount Sinai, Dr. Zhou spearheaded an institutional initiative to establish a small-molecule screening facility and served as the liaison between Mount Sinai and the New York Structural Biology Center.

Dr. Zhou is an internationally recognized researcher whose work has received numerous honors, including the American Cancer Society Young Investigator Award. In 2003, he received the GlaxoSmithKline Drug Discovery and Development Award for his research in developing a novel anti-HIV/AIDS therapy that promises to overcome major viral drug resistance and addresses the problem of latent HIV replication.

Dr. Zhou's research has been published in prestigious scientific journals, including Nature, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Science Signaling, and Molecular Cell. He is frequently invited to speak at conferences around the world to discuss structural and chemical biology in gene regulation and drug discovery for human diseases, including HIV/AIDS, cancer, inflammation, and neurodegenerative disease. He serves on editorial boards of scientific journals and review panels for such institutions as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, as well as several private research foundations. Dr. Zhou is also a Board Director for the New York Structural Biology Center.

After receiving his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from East China University of Science and Technology, Dr. Zhou earned a master's degree in science (chemistry) from Michigan Technological University and a PhD in chemistry from Purdue University. He spent three years conducting postdoctoral research at Abbott Laboratories in Chicago. He joined Mount Sinai in 1997 to establish the Structural Biology Program.