Clinical Virology & Infectious Diseases

Biography

Zhidong's research career has been focusing throughout on molecular pathogenesis, immunology and diagnosis of viral diseases of veterinary importance. After his PhD, Zhidong joined in FAO/OIE World Reference Laboratory for Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) as a Veterinary Virologist in Pirbright Institute (Formerly, Institute for Animal Health), UK, where he successfully identified the cellular site for FMD virus persistence in persistently infected cattle. He then became a senior Veterinary Virologist at Pirbright Institute to study molecular pathogenesis of FMD, swine vesicular disease (SVD), and experimental epidemiology of FMD virus. He revealed the correlation of the presence of viral RNA in tissues of the bovine dorsal soft palate with the presence of infectious virus in oesophago-pharyngeal fluid samples. In 2004, he established Pathogenesis of Vesicular Disease Group funded by UK BBSRC and Defra grants at Pirbright Institute. Under his leadership, a consistent change was found in the B-C loop of VP2 observed in FMD virus genes from persistently infected cattle, which implies for association with virus persistence and a strand-specific quantitative RT-PCR was successfully developed to analyze FMD virus replication in vitro. From a collaborative project with Royal Veterinary College, UK, it was found that FMD virus is able to cross the placenta and causes death in fetal lambs, and the tissue tropism of FMD virus in fetal and young lambs has also been identified. Since 2008, Dr. Zhang was a member of Academic Committee of the Pirbright Institute. In 2010, he moved to National Centers for Foreign Animal Disease, Canada, as Head of Section of Vesicular diseases, where he worked on development of novel serological and molecular diagnostic assays for detection FMD virus, vesicular stomatitis virus, Seneca Valley virus, SVD virus and Schmallenberg virus. In addition, he was responsible for management of diagnostic service delivery and staff, providing scientific advice to internal and external clients. He was also a member of the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health Animal Care Committee and CFIA foreign animal diseases working group. In 2013, he, as a China “1000-Plan” Scholar, joined Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, CAAS and was appointed as Chief Scientist for Viral Diseases in Grazing Animals Team.

Research Interest

Veterinary Medicine, Animal Virology, Immunology, Infectious Diseases.