Nanyin Zhang (left) and Pablo Perez, postdoctoral fellow, operate an MRI scanner.
Nanyin Zhang named AIMBE fellow
Biomedical and electrical engineering faculty member recognized for neuroimaging research
04/01/2019
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Nanyin Zhang, Huck Professor of Brain Imaging and professor of electrical engineering, has been elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).
AIMBE is a nonprofit organization that provides leadership and advocacy in medical and biological engineering for the benefit of society. The College of Fellows includes more than 1,500 outstanding individuals in academia, industry and government. Leaders in the medical and biological engineering community, they have distinguished themselves through their contributions in research, industrial practice and/or education.
Fellows are nominated each year by their peers and represent the top 2 percent of the medical and biological engineering community. They are considered the life-blood of AIMBE and work towards realizing AIMBE’s vision to provide medical and biological engineering innovation for the benefit of humanity.
Zhang’s research focuses on neuroimaging method and applications. He is the head of the Translational Neuroimaging and Systems Neuroscience Lab.
His lab pioneered a novel resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) method that allows the functional networks of a rat’s brain to be studied without any influences of anesthesia. Based on this process, Dr. Zhang’s lab established a platform for brain study that integrates fMRI, which enables brain activity to be viewed in real time; optogenetics, where light is used to manipulate function of neurons in the brain; DREADDs (designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs); behavioral methods; and electrophysiology.
The integrated platform allows multi-dimensional, multi-scale information to be collected in the same animal, and makes possible the translation of neuroimaging findings between animal models and human brain disorders. This in turn enabled his lab to uncover the organizational architecture of the brain network in awake rats for the first time. It revealed how this network organization was altered in different animal models of mental disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol use disorder.
Zhang’s awards and honors include the 2017 Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award for the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Huck Professorship of Brain Imaging with the Huck Institutes of Life Sciences and the Endowed Hartz Family Career Development Professorship with the College of Engineering. He is a member of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and the Society for Neuroscience, and serves on the editorial boards of NeuroImage and Frontiers in Neuroscience.
Zhang was formally inducted into the College of Fellows at AIMBE’s 2019 Annual Event on March 25 in Washington, D.C.
Share this story:
