Dr. Chun-Li Zhang received his Ph.D. in Genetics and Development from UT Southwestern Medical Center, where he worked on transcriptional control of muscle development and heart disease. Upon graduation in 2003, he conducted postdoctoral research as a HHMI Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation in Dr. Ronald Evans’ laboratory at the Salk Institute, California. In collaboration with Dr. Fred Gage at the Salk, Dr. Zhang worked on adult neural stem cells and neurogenesis. He joined the faculty as Assistant Professor in 2008 and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2014 and Professor in 2018.

The major focus of his laboratory is on molecular and cellular mechanisms controlling adult neural stem cells, neurogenesis, regeneration of the nervous system, and cellular reprogramming for disease modeling and drug identification. Their discoveries were extensively reported by the news media, such as reprogramming in the adult brain (The Scientist Magazine, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, etc.), astrocyte reprogramming in the adult spinal cord (The Scientist Magazine, Neurology Today, Medical Daily, Breibart News Network, The Daily Texan, etc.), reprogramming NG2 glia for regeneration and recovery after spinal cord injury (Fiercebiotech, Eurekalert, etc.), modeling human amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with adult-converted spinal motor neurons (MDLinx, Alzforum, The ALS Forum, Science Mission, ALS News Today, etc.), new findings on traumatic brain injury (Science Daily, News Medical, MD Magazine, etc.), and in vivo reprogramming of mature neurons (Discover Magazine, Science Magazine, Fierce Biotech, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, Science Daily, EurekAlert, etc.). Their work on cell fate reprogramming in vivo was recognized as one of 2014's Big Advances in Science by The Scientist Magazine.