Xiamen University | China
Dr. Yang Zhang is an Assistant Professor at the State Key Laboratory of Cellular Stress Biology, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University. He earned a B.E. in Biological Engineering, an M.E. and Ph.D. in Power Engineering and Engineering Thermophysics under Prof. Liejin Guo at Xi’an Jiaotong University, and conducted part of his Ph.D. research in microbiology jointly supervised by Prof. Fevzi Daldal at University of Pennsylvania. His research expertise lies at the intersection of synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, biocatalysis and photosynthetic bacteria, including pathway reconstruction, cascade biotransformation, synthetic genetic circuits, enzyme evolution, elucidation of natural product biosyntheses, and utilization of C1/C2 feedstocks and agricultural wastes for fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, flavors, fragrances and biofuels. He leads several funded projects spanning lignin full-process technology, formate utilization in Rhodobacter species, AI-assisted component optimization and adaptation, valencene and astaxanthin overproduction in photosynthetic bacteria. His publication record includes papers in ACS Synthetic Biology, Chemical Engineering Journal, Nature Communications, Microbial Biotechnology, etc. His h-index is approximately 16, with over25 documents and ~435 citations (based on recent metrics). He has been recognized with provincial and municipal high‐talent awards in Fujian and Xiamen. Dr. Zhang is committed to advancing sustainable microbial cell factories and green production platforms, and aims to combine innovation in synthetic biology with real-world feedstocks to address environmental and industrial challenges.
Profiles : Scopus | Orcid
Featured Publications
Li, Z., Li, W., Gao, X., Yao, W., Zhu, Z., Luo, X., Zhang, Y., & Yuan, J. (2025). “Systematic engineering to enhance valencene production in Rhodobacter sphaeroides.” Bioresources and Bioprocessing.
Zhang, Y., Wang, X., Yuan, J., & Guo, L. (2024). “Multidimensional engineering of Rhodobacter sphaeroides for enhanced photo-fermentative hydrogen production.” Chemical Engineering Journal.
Zhang, Y., Cheng, C., Fu, B., Long, T., He, N., Fan, J., Xue, Z., Chen, A., & Yuan, J. (2024). “Microbial upcycling of depolymerized lignin into value-added chemicals.” BioDesign Research.
Fan, J., Zhang, Y., Li, W., Li, Z., Zhang, D., Mo, Q., Cao, M., & Yuan, J. (2024). “Multidimensional optimization of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for carotenoid overproduction.” BioDesign Research.
Yuan, J., Cheng, J., Fan, C., Wu, P., Zhang, Y., Cao, M., & Shi, T. (2023). “Development of shuttle vectors for rapid prototyping of engineered Synechococcus sp. PCC7002 (vol 106, pg 8169, 2022).” Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology.
Zhang, Y., Meng, W., He, Y., Chen, Y., Shao, M., & Yuan, J. (2023). “Multidimensional optimization for accelerating light-powered biocatalysis in Rhodopseudomonas palustris.” Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts.