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Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Zhigang Zhou

Zhigang Zhou, M.D., Ph.D. is from Zhengzhou, P.R. China Zhigang graduated from Henan Medical University where he received both MD and MS degrees. In 2000, he was awarded a PhD from the Institute of Neurology at Shanghai Medical University. His doctoral work focused on screening and identification of genes related to myasthenia gravis.

Zhigang moved to Pittsburgh in 2001 where he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Jun Chen in the Department of Neurology at University of Pittsburgh studying the molecular mechanism of stroke. In June of 2004, Zhigang joined the Mata-Fink lab as a postdoctoral Research fellow. Zhigang’s research focuses on new mechanisms of microglial activation in neuropathic pain, and mechanisms of cell death after spinal cord injury.

In October of 2010, Zhigang joined in Dr Joan Taylor’s lab as a postdoctoral research fellow. Zhigang’s research focuses on how FAK regulates SMC phenotype during vascular morphogenesis and to identify the precise mechanism by which FAK and leupaxin alter SMC motility and differentiation.