Email: hefeizhang11@fudan.edu.cn

Office Address: 13th Floor, Building D3, Bay Valley Science and Technology Park, Yangpu District, Shanghai

Lab Homepage：https://systemsbio-zhanglab.org

Personal Profile

Jun 2025–Present  Assistant Professor, Institute of Metabolism and Integrative Biology, Fudan University

Feb 2019–May 2025  Postdoctoral associate, Department of Systems Biology, UMass Chan Medical School

Jul 2016–Jan 2019  Postdoctoral associate, Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Jul 2009–Jun 2016  Ph.D., Institute of Brain Science, Fudan University

Jul 2005–Jun 2009  B.S., School of Chemical & Material Engineering, Jiangnan University

Dr. Hefei Zhang's research focuses on systems biology, with major contributions including:

1. Development of Worm Perturb-Seq, a next-generation functional genomics approach for in vivo studies (Nature Communications, 2025);

2. Discovery of principles of transcriptional metabolic rewiring, proposing the Compensation/Repression model that demonstrates metabolic rewiring is coordinately regulated at the network level (Nature, 2025a);

3. Establishment of a research paradigm that integrates functional genomics data with network modeling to systematically predict metabolic network wiring, providing the theoretical framework for understanding C. elegans metabolism at systems level (Nature, 2025b).

Research Interests

Within cells, biomolecules form functionally diverse molecular networks - including metabolic, signaling, and gene regulatory networks - that collectively maintain cellular homeostasis through complex coordinated interactions. In multicellular systems, this complexity expands hierarchically as specialized tissues emerge, each maintaining tissue-specific functions while engaging in sophisticated inter-tissue communication to keep whole-organism homeostasis.

To fully elucidate the fundamental principles for maintaining homeostasis, we need to investigate both the coordination of molecular networks at the cellular level and the multi-tissue coordination at whole-organism level.

Specifically, our group will pursue the following directions:

• Developing next-generation systems biology tools for multi-scale analysis

• Investigating the principles of molecular networks coordination in keeping cellular homeostasis

• Investigating multi-tissue coordination through metabolic network in keeping organismal homeostasis

• Investigating multi-tissue coordination through signaling network in keeping organismal homeostasis

Honors and Awards

Xianghui Young Scholar, 2025

Selected Publications

1. Xuhang Li#, Hefei Zhang#, Thomas Hodder, Wen Wang, L. Safak Yilmaz, Chad L. Myers, Albertha J.M. Walhout. Systems-level design principles of metabolic rewiring in an animal. Nature, 2025, 640, 203-211 (#: equal contribution).

2. Hefei Zhang#, Xuhang Li#, L. Tenzin Tseyang, Gabrielle E Giese, Hui Wang, Bo Yao, Jingyan Zhang, Rachel L. Neve, Elizabeth A. Shank, Jessica B Spinelli, Safak Yilmaz, Albertha J.M. Walhout. A systems-level, semi-quantitative landscape of metabolic flux in C. elegans. Nature, 2025, 640, 194-202 (#: equal contribution).

3. Hefei Zhang#, Xuhang Li#, Dongyuan Song, Onur Yukselen, Shivani Nanda, Alper Kucukural, Jingyi Jessica Li, Manuel Garber, Albertha J.M. Walhout. Worm Perturb-Seq: massively parallel whole-animal RNAi and RNA-seq. Nature Communications, 2025, 16: 4785 (#: equal contribution).

4. Hefei Zhang, Quan Zhang, Ge Gao, Xinjian Wang, Tiantian Wang, Zhitao Kong, Guoxiang Wang, Cuizhen Zhang, Yun Wang, Gang Peng. UBTOR/KIAA1024 regulates neurite outgrowth and neoplasia through mTOR signaling. PLOS Genetics, 2018, 14(8): e1007583.

5. Fenghua Wang#, Hefei Zhang#, Jingxia Gao, Fengjiao Chen, Sijie Chen, Cuizhen Zhang, Gang Peng. Rapid and accurate synthesis of TALE genes from synthetic oligonucleotides. Biotechniques, 2016, 60(6): 299-305 (#: equal contribution).