Zhenyu Cheng

Education
BSc: Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
MSc: University of Waterloo, Canada
PhD: University of Waterloo, Canada
Postdoctoral Training: Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Research Interests
The main theme of Dr. Cheng’s lab is to utilize systems biology approaches to study the pathogenesis of infectious diseases. He is interested in understanding how complex signaling pathways control the flow of cellular information as an integrated system. The overall research plan in the lab is to identify signaling components in both host immunity and bacterial pathogenesis pathways and to establish a framework for placing these diverse components into an integrated network, and then to use the knowledge from these studies to develop novel strategies to defend against pathogen attack. In addition, they also study the signal transduction events involved in various diseases, including cancers and developmental diseases. 

Selected Publications
Cheng Z.*, Li J.-F.*, Niu Y., Zhang X.-C., Woody O.Z., Xiong Y., Djonovic S., Millet Y., Bush J., McConkey B.J., Sheen J., and Ausubel F.M. *contributed equally. (2015) Pathogen-secreted proteases activate a novel plant immune pathway. Nature 521:213-216. 

Zhang X.-C., Millet Y., Cheng Z., Bush J., and Ausubel F.M. (2015) SGT1b/HSP70/HSP90 chaperone complexes play an essential role in jasmonate signaling in Arabidopsis. Nature Plants 1(5):Article number 15049. 

Cheng Z., Woody O.Z., Song J., Glick B.R., and McConkey B.J. (2009) Proteome reference map for the plant growth-promoting bacterium Pseudomonas putida UW4. Proteomics 9: 4271-4274 

Cheng Z., Wei Y.C., Sung W.W.L., Glick B.R., and McConkey B.J. (2009) Proteomic analysis of the response of the plant growth-promoting bacterium Pseudomonas putida UW4 to nickel stress. Proteome Science 7:18 

Cheng Z., Duan J., Hao Y., McConkey B.J., and Glick B.R. (2009) Identification of bacterial proteins mediating the interactions between Pseudomonas putida UW4 and Brassica napus (canola). Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions 22:686-694  

Selected Awards
Tosteson Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2015
Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2012-2014
NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2010-2012
W.B. Pearson Medal for outstanding PhD thesis, 2010