Prof. Zhao Yanxiang is the Associate Head of the Department of Life Sciences, and Chair Professor of Biochemistry and Biotechnology. She joined PolyU Faculty of Science in 2006 — and this year marks her 20th anniversary with PolyU.
Her primary research interest lies in autophagy (think of it as your body’s internal recycling and cleanup crew), alongside cell metabolism and the structure-based development of functional molecules with therapeutic potential.
Her lab was the first to report the crystal structures of core autophagy regulators — Beclin 1, Atg14L, UVRAG, and NRBF2 — published in leading journals such as Nature Communications, Science Advances, PNAS, and Autophagy. A distinctive feature of her research is the "mechanism-to-therapeutics" approach, which translates structural and biochemical insights into translational innovations for cancer treatment.
During the 2025/2026 review period, her team secured two major RGC grants totalling HK$40.2M.
🔬 The Research Impact Fund (RIF, HK$7.8M) — to develop autophagy-targeting stapled peptides (autotides) and antibody-autotide conjugates (AAC) in collaboration with Simcere Pharma
🔬 The Strategic Topics Grant (STG, HK$32.4M) — to build the PIN-Vax technology platform for next-generation peptide-based immunogenic neoantigen vaccines
These achievements validate her mechanism-to-therapeutics strategy and continuous effort to establish PolyU and Hong Kong as emerging hubs for biomedical research and translational innovation. 🌏💡
Congratulations once again to Prof. Zhao and her team on their remarkable achievements!
Award Announcement:
