Donna D. Zhang, PhD
Assistant Professor
Pharmacology & Toxicology
At the moment, Donna Zhang, PhD, is working to “understand the cellular protective system against cancer.”
The winner of the 1999 DuPont Young Investigator Award hopes to help find anti-cancer dietary supplements and develop synthetic reagents that reduce the incidence of cancer.
“I’m trying to find a more effective drug,” Zhang says while sitting in front of a cell culture hood and several dishes for growing mammalian cells.
Zhang completed her PhD in molecular toxicology and oncology at New York University in 1997. She worked for the University of Missouri for six years before finding The University of Arizona.
When Zhang left the University of Missouri behind in September 2005, she also had to leave behind her husband, a physicist who is a full professor at the University of Missouri, and her youngest daughter. She says it’s difficult for two professionals to find the right niche at the same institution. Missouri has a very good physics department, but no toxicology department, she says.
She has one of her daughters here with her and another attends New York University.
Zhang describes UA as “the right place” for her. She says this is partly because of collaboration possibilities with numerous outstanding researchers on campus.
“Dr. Zhang’s expertise in signal transduction and molecular toxicology adds strength to our expanding programs in this area,” Terrence Monks, head of Pharmacology and Toxicology, says.
Five years from now, Zhang hopes to be tenured, well established at UA and to “understand the major control system of our cells against cancer.”