He received his Ph.D. in cell biology from the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China, in 2003. For his postdoctoral training, he joined the Vascular Biology Center of Georgia Health Sciences University in Augusta where he was the recipient of postdoctoral fellowship awards from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International and American Heart Association. Dr. Zhang joined the University of Texas Medical Branch in 2011.