Lab Announcements » Zheng Laboratory » College of Pharmacy

Here, you can find highlights for Zheng Laboratory and our team from over the past several years.

2022 Announcements

NOVEMBER 2022 | Saikat received the Outstanding Merit Award from the UF International Center!
SEPTEMBER 2022 | Saikat received the Best Poster Award at the UF Chemistry-Biology Interface Symposium! Great work!
AUGUST 2022 | Alexis received the NIH/NIGMS Chemistry-Biology Interface T32 Training Fellowship! Congrats!
AUGUST 2022 | Kuntala Dey has joined the lab as a first-year graduate student. Welcome!
JUNE 2022 | Megan Mosteiro has joined the lab as an undergraduate research fellow. Welcome!
MAY 2022 | Congratulations to Alexis for receiving the Junior Award for Excellence in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry!
MAY 2022 | Congrats to Alexis for winning the Best Graduate Student Seminar Presentation Award in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry!
MAY 2022 | Pratik Pal has accepted a position at Bristol Myers Squibb. We will miss you and best of luck!
MAY 2022 | Saikat Das has joined the Zheng Lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome!
APRIL 2022 | Congratulations to our graduate students Matt and Alexis for the publication of their review article “Overcoming Cancer Drug Resistance Utilizing PROTAC Technology!”
APRIL 2022 | Hui Li has joined the Zheng Lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome!

DECEMBER 2021 | Vanisa Petriti has joined the Zheng Lab as a graduate student assistant. Welcome!
DECEMBER 2021 | Congratulations to our research technician Wanyi Hu for being awarded UF College of Pharmacy Outstanding Research Staff Award at this year’s annul college-wide award ceremony. Thanks for all your effort and keep up the great work!
DECEMBER 2021 | Congratulations to our graduate student Saikat Poddar for passing his UF College of Pharmacy Oral Qualifying Exam titled “Discovery of Novel BCL-XL/BCL-2 PROTAC Degraders.” Great job!
NOVEMBER 2021 | Our collaborative work with Dr. Daohong Zhou’s Lab was published in Nature Communications, titled “Development of a BCL-xL and BCL-2 dual degrader with improved anti-leukemic activity”. Congratulations Pratik, Xingui, Peiyi, Wanyi, and all other authors! Read more here.

JANUARY 2021 | Xingui joined Dr. Alessio Ciulli’s Lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Congratulations and we wish you the best!
JANUARY 2021 | Laith Elissa started in the Zheng Lab as a PharmD research volunteer. Welcome!
JANUARY 2021 | Michael started in the Zheng Lab as an undergraduate research volunteer. Welcome!

DECEMBER 2020 | In collaboration with Robert Eoff’s Lab at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Satheesh and Xingui published an article titled “Facile semisynthesis and evaluation of garcinoic acid and its analogs for the inhibition of human DNA polymerase β” in Molecules. Congratulations! Read more here.

DECEMBER 2020 | Xuan started as a Principal Investigator at Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica. Congratulations and we wish you the best!
AUGUST 2020 | Peiyi is a leading author of a review article summarizing our recent work on the discovery of BCL-PROTACs, titled “PROTAC is an effective approach to address the platelet toxicity associated with BCL-XL inhibitors,” published in Exploration of Targeted Anti-tumor Therapy. Congratulations! Read more here.
AUGUST 2020 | Alexis and Matt joined the Zheng Lab as graduate student assistants. Welcome!
JULY 2020 | Yufeng and Xuan published their article titled “Discovery of histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3)-specific PROTACs” in Chemical Communications in collaboration with Dr. Diaqing Liao. Congratulations! Read more here.

MAY 2020 | Xingui published a review titled “Assays and technologies for developing proteolysis targeting chimera degraders” in Future Medicinal Chemistry. Congratulations! Read more here.

MAY 2020 | Xuan and Peiyi published an IAP-recruiting BCL-XL PROTAC in their paper titled “Discovery of IAP-Based BCL-XL PROTACs as potent degraders across multiple cancer cell lines” in European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Congratulations! Read more here.

APRIL 2020 | Our discovery work on the BCL-XL PROTAC degraders titled “Discovery of PROTAC BCL-X_L degraders as potent anticancer agents with low on-target platelet toxicity” has been published in European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Congratulations to Xuan and other authors! Read more here.

APRIL 2020 | Our collaborative work with Dr. Daohong Zhou’s Lab was published in Nature Communications, titled “Using proteolysis targeting chimera technology to overcome ABT 263 on-target platelet toxicity and improve its senolytic activity.” Congratulations Xuan, Peiyi, Xingui, and all other authors! Read more here.
APRIL 2020 | Xingui’s paper titled “Deuteration of the farnesyl terminal methyl groups of δ-tocotrienol and its effects on the metabolic stability and ability of inducing G-CSF production” has been published in Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry. Congratulations! Read more here.

FEBRUARY 2020 | Xuan published an editorial titled “Targeting anti-apoptotic BCL-2 family proteins for cancer treatment” in Future Medicinal Chemistry. Congratulations! Read more here.
FEBRUARY 2020 | Danny Chen started in the Zheng Lab as an undergraduate research volunteer. Welcome!
FEBRUARY 2020 | Our work done in collaboration with Dr. Daohong Zhou’s Lab published in Nature Medicine in December 2019 titled “A selective BCL-XL PROTAC degrader achieves safe and potent antitumor activity” was highlighted in AACR Cancer Discovery. Congratulations! Read more here.
JANUARY 2020 | Jonathan Costro started in the Zheng Lab pursuing a PharmD Research Elective. Welcome!
JANUARY 2020 | Xiaoyang has been admitted to the Chemistry PhD program at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Congratulations and best wishes!
JANUARY 2020 | Xingui and Saikat’s paper titled “Synthesis and microsomal metabolic stability studies of a fluorine-substituted δ-tocotrienol derivative” was published in ChemMedChem. Congratulations! Read more here.

DECEMBER 2019 | Our collaborative work with Dr. Daohong Zhou’s Lab titled “A selective BCL-XL PROTAC degrader achieves safe and potent antitumor activity” was published in Nature Medicine. Congratulations to all authors! Read more here.
DECEMBER 2019 | Our collaborative work with Dr. Daohong Zhou’s Lab titled “Utilizing PROTAC technology to address the on-target platelet toxicity associated with inhibition of BCL-XL” has been published in Chemical Communications. Congratulations Xuan, Xingui, Peiyi, and others! Read more here.

SEPTEMBER 2019 | Yufeng has joined the Zheng Lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome!
SEPTEMBER 2019 | Jiali Liu started in the Zheng Lab as an undergraduate research volunteer. Welcome!
AUGUST 2019 | Saikat Podar has joined the Zheng Lab as a graduate student assistant. Welcome!
JULY 2019 | Katherine Zheveleva has started in the Zheng Lab as a PharmD research volunteer. Welcome!
JUNE 2019 | Matt has joined the Zheng Lab as a summer research intern. Welcome!
MAY2019 | Abelardo Montalvo has joined the Zheng Lab as a selected participant of the Intensive Summer Research Program. Welcome!

JULY 2018 | Dr. Xuan “Vick” Zhang has been promoted to Assistant Professor. Congratulations!
JULY 2018 | Wanyi has joined the Zheng Lab as a research technician. Welcome!
JUNE 2018 | The Zheng Lab has relocated to the University of Florida from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.