Dr. Mingzhao Zhu has been devoted to the field of adaptive immunity, especially focusing on lymphoid tissue microenvironment and T cell development and response. More specifically:
1. The role of specific lymphoid tissue stromal cells for T cell development and response.
2. Epigenetic regulation of T cell development, homeostasis and response.
3. Development and immunological mechanism of lymph node targeted nanoparticle vaccines.

In the past 6 years (since 2016), Dr. Zhu's major achievements include:
1. The novel mechanism of specific lymphoid tissue stromal cells for T cell development and response (Nat Commun. 2016, J Immunol. 2018, 2019, 2020, Front Immunol. 2021);
2. The novel epigenetic mechanism of histone variant H2A.Z for eukaryotic DNA replication and T cell proliferation (Nature 2020).
3. The novel mechanism of CD146 on LCK activation for T cell development and activation (J Clin Invest. 2021).
4. The novel mechanism of lymph node targeted nanoparticle vaccines and development of new vaccines. (Nat Nanotechnol. 2020, Cell Mol Immunol. 2021, Nanomedicine. 2019, Cell Discov. 2017, Oncoimmunology 2016, Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2021).
Given his achievements in this field, Dr. Zhu has been awarded "The National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars" in 2020, and "WuXi AppTec Life Science and Chemistry Awards" in 2021.