Jane (Yunhui) Zhang

email: yunhuiz@unc.edu

Background and Research Interests

Jane obtained a BS in biopharmaceutics, along with a secondary bachelor's degree in business management in 2006 from Jilin University, China, where she went on to receive her MS in pharmaceutics analysis in 2009. Then she enrolled in the MD program for basic medicine in the same university. With experience on 11 pharmacokinetics projects, from preclinical to clinical, Jane recognized the important role of drug transport in pharmacokinetics, which was an unknown area for her at that time. She decided to spend two years working in this area and joined Dr. Thakker’s group in 2010 as a visiting scholar with scholarship.

Now Jane works on the project role of transporters in the efficacy of metformin in breast cancer. Anti-cancer effect of metformin, which is a widely prescribed drug for type 2 diabetes, has been revealed recently both in vitro and in vivo. Since it is a hydrophilic drug and requires transporters to facilitate its cellular uptake, we hypothesize specific transporters on breast cancer cell membrane mediate metformin cellular uptake and drive its anticancer efficacy.