Dr Jade Yao Zhenlan joined the Hong Kong Jockey Club Global Health Institute (GHI) as a Research Assistant Professor in the summer of 2026. She completed her PhD training at Fudan University under the mentorship of Dr Yuan Zhenghong, where she investigated how the host innate immune system responds to hepatitis B virus infection.

She subsequently pursued her postdoctoral research in Dr Melody Li’s laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her work there focused on mosquito-borne viruses, specifically examining how chikungunya virus (CHIKV) adapts to infect human macrophages more efficiently. Following her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr Yao remained in the Dr Li’s laboratory as an Assistant Project Scientist, pivoting her research to SARS-CoV-2. Her studies explored how the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein triggers excessive inflammatory responses in macrophages via Toll-like receptor signaling.

Over the course of her career, Dr Yao has received the Sydney Finegold Postdoctoral Award (2022) and the American Society for Virology (ASV) Postdoctoral Scholar Travel Award (2025). She is an active member of the ASV.

At GHI, Dr Yao translates her long-standing interest in virus-host interactions into vaccine development. Her current research focuses on engineering multivalent attenuated and recombinant vaccines targeting influenza viruses and betacoronaviruses. She is particularly interested in integrating experimental virology with computational approaches to anticipate viral evolution, leveraging these insights to design broadly protective vaccines with minimized inflammatory profiles.

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=i-u8x2sAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

* Denotes equal contribution / Co-first authorship

1. Yao Z., and Li MMH. Epitope tagging and coimmunoprecipitation to identify viral protein interactors. Book chapter in Methods in Molecular Biology. (Accepted, online soon)
2. Yao Z*, Alvarez PA*, Chavez C, Delgado Y, Kaushal P, Buchholz DW, Austin D, Li Q, Yu Y, Zaiss AK, Arumugaswami V, Ding Q, Hsu JJ, Damoiseaux R, Aguilar HC, Bouhaddou M, Hoffmann A, Li MMH. SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid induces hyperinflammation and vascular leakage through the Toll-like receptor signaling axis in macrophages. Science Advances.12, eaea2780(2026). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aea2780.
3. Villanueva Guzman MdM, Yao Z, Li MMH, Noval MG. Hidden in Plain Sight: Alphavirus Persistence and Its Potential for Driving Chronic Pathogenesis. Viruses 18(1):30 (2026). doi:10.3390/v18010030.
4. Yao Z, Ramachandran S, Huang S, Kim E, Jami-Alahmadi Y, Kaushal P, Bouhaddou M, Wohlschlegel J.A, and Li MMH. Interaction of chikungunya virus glycoproteins with macrophage factors controls virion production. The EMBO Journal. 43, 10 (2024). doi: 10.1038/s44318-024-00193-3.
5. Nguyen LP, Aldana KS, Yang E, Yao Z, Li MMH. Alphavirus Evasion of Zinc Finger Antiviral Protein (ZAP) Correlates with CpG Suppression in a Specific Viral nsP2 Gene Sequence. Viruses Mar 24;15(4):830 (2023). doi: 10.3390/v15040830.
6. Cheng Y*, Medina A*, Yao Z, Basu M, Natekar JP, Lang J, Sanchez E, Nkembo MB, Xu C, Qian X, Nguyen PTT, Wen Z, Song H, Ming GL, Kumar M, Brinton MA, Li MMH, Tang H. Intrinsic Antiviral Immunity of Barrier Cells Revealed by an iPSC-Derived Blood–Brain Barrier Cellular Model. Cell Reports 39(9): 110885 (2022).  doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.110885.
7. Luu AP, Yao Z*, Ramachandran S*, Azzopardi SA, Miles LA, Schneider WM, Hoffmann HH, Bozzacco L, Garcia G Jr, Gong D, Damoiseaux R, Tang H, Morizono K, Rudin CM, Sun R, Arumugaswami V, Poirier JT, MacDonald MR, Rice CM, Li MMH. A CRISPR Activation Screen Identifies an Atypical Rho GTPase That Enhances Zika Viral Entry. Viruses 13(11):2113 (2021). doi: 10.3390/v13112113.
8. Yao Z*, Jia X*, Megger DA*, Chen J, Liu Y, Li J, Sitek B, Yuan Z. Label-Free Proteomic Analysis of Exosomes Secreted from THP-1-Derived Macrophages Treated with IFN-α Identifies Antiviral Proteins Enriched in Exosomes. Journal of Proteome Research 18(3):855-864 (2019). doi: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.8b00514.
9. Yao Z*, Qiao Y*, Li X, Chen J, Ding J, Bai L, Shen F, Shi B, Liu J, Peng L, Li J, Yuan Z. Exosomes Exploit the Virus Entry Machinery and Pathway To Transmit Alpha Interferon-Induced Antiviral Activity. Journal of Virology 92(24): e01578-18 (2018, Spotlight Article). doi: 10.1128/JVI.01578-18.