Zhiyong Yang

Dr. Zhiyong Yang is an Associate Research Fellow at Pfizer Inc. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Nankai University in 1989, and his Ph.D. degree in molecular/cell biology from Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1995. From 1995 to 2000, Dr. Yang was a post-doctoral fellow at Yale University and Harvard University. Dr. Yang started his industry career at Pharmacia (which later became a part of Pfizer) in 2000, where he conducted research focusing on the identification and characterization of novel drug targets for diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. In 2003 he joined Wyeth Research, now also a part of Pfizer, and has been leading cross-functional drug discovery project teams to develop novel therapeutics (both small molecules and biologicals) to treat respiratory diseases, chronic kidney diseases, and other inflammatory diseases. He has co-authored more than 20 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals, and is also a co-inventor on 2 US patents. He has been invited to speak at several professional conferences, including the prestigious Gordon Research Conference. Dr. Yang is the recipient of a number of awards such as the CAS President’s Award for Distinguished Graduate Student (1995), and the NIH Individual National Research Service Award (1998). He is an ad hoc reviewer for Arthritis Foundation grants, and for multiple scientific journals. He served as the President of Chinese-American BioMedical Association (CABA) for the 2014-2015 term.