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News
Shuanglin Zhang is honored with the 2008 Research Award
 Zhang's research has had a phenomenal impact on his department, said Mark Gockenbach, chair of mathematical sciences. "It's largely due to Shuanglin that the department made it into the top 100 nationally in terms of research expenditures," he said. "He’s also helped set a new standard for the department in terms of advising graduate students and postdocs—he's kicked that up to a new level."
Zhang is advising four of the 12 doctoral students within the department's statistical genetics group, which includes Zhang's wife, Assistant Professor Qiuying Sha. Because Zhang has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease), the group meets for a Sunday evening seminar every week at the couple's home.
Using his computer to communicate, Zhang said he was "really excited" when he learned he would receive the Research Award.
"Lots of Michigan Tech faculty do awesome research," said Sha. "We are honored, and we really appreciate Mark for nominating Shuanglin." She also thanked the the graduate students and postdocs on their team for contributing to the award-winning research.
Zhang and his team develop statistical tools to isolate the genetic causes of disease, a foundational effort to cure some of humankind's most intractable illnesses. "Usually, a single gene doesn't have much effect," said Gockenbach. "Combinations of genes are behind these diseases. The human genome has a large number of genes to begin with, so the number of possible combinations is astronomical."
Zhang and his team have identified 11 genes associated with type 2 diabetes using a novel statistical method that first narrows the field of potentially dangerous genes and then determines which act on their own and which act in combination. This test compares the genomes of unrelated groups with and without a specific disease; in this study, they analyzed the genomes of over 1,000 people, half with type 2 diabetes and half without.
They have also developed a powerful new statistical tool that can cast back through generations of a family to determine which genes are associated with inherited illnesses, such as ALS and diabetes.
Zhang has authored or coauthored 60 papers in refereed publications, many in the top journals in his field. He has been the principal or co-principal investigator on over $2 million in research funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Zhang received the mathematical sciences department's Outstanding Research Award in 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006 and the Outstanding Research Award three times at Heilongjiang University, in Harbin, China. He came to the US in 1999 as a postdoctoral associate at the Yale University School of Medicine and joined the Michigan Tech faculty in 2001.
Daniel Schaid, a professor of genomics at the Mayo Clinic, wrote in support of Zhang's nomination. "Throughout the years, I have closely followed Dr. Zhang's publications on statistical genetics because of his impressive insights into genetic problems and sophisticated statistical skills," he wrote. "When I was editor of the journal Genetic Epidemiology, Dr. Zhang's submitted publications often received highly favorable reviews, resulting in important publications . . . He is well deserving of the Research Award."
Hongyu Zhao, a professor of biostatistics and genetics at Yale, praised Zhang's research contributions. "He has established himself as one of the leaders in a highly competitive field that holds the promise of helping geneticists identify targets to treat human diseases," Zhao said. "His work has been truly path-breaking and highly influential, reflected by his publications, the grants that have been awarded to him, the presentations he has been invited to give, and, most importantly, the highest respect he commands among his peers in the community."
"It would be impossible to enumerate all the contributions he has made," Zhao added. "In addition, he has demonstrated the highest level of integrity, both in his interactions with people and in the quality of his work."
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