Dr. Liman Zhang is a structural biologist who studies how the immune system responds to infection and cancer.

She earned her B.S. in biotechnology from Jilin University and her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing (NIBS). She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital.

In 2020, she established her lab at Oregon Health & Science University, where she built a research program that explored the molecular mechanisms underlying immunological processes. Her expertise in cryo-EM and biochemistry revealed critical new insights into the NAIP/NLRC4 inflammasome, which comprises multiprotein complexes that trigger inflammatory responses during an immune reaction.

In 2024, she joined Van Andel Institute’s Department of Structural Biology as an associate professor.

She has received several awards for her work, including the 2023 Outstanding Research Faculty Award (Chemical Physiology and Biochemistry Department) from Oregon Health & Science University, a Medical Research Foundation New Investigator Award, a prestigious K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health and a Cancer Research Institute Postdoctoral Training Fellowship.