About Me

Here is Lingfeng Zhang (张凌风; pronounced: “Ling-fung Jang”).

I am a graduate student majoring in Psychiatry and Mental Health at Renmin Hospital, Wuhan University, supervised by Prof. Zhongchun Liu. I received my Bachelor’s degree in Clinical Medicine from the Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University.

I was a Visiting Student at the Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence (ISTBI), Fudan University from September 2025 to January 2026, working with Prof. Wei Cheng on computational psychiatry and multi-omics analyses of major depressive disorder.

My research focuses on identifying potential biomarkers in psychiatric disorders through scRNA-seq and multi-omics integration.

I am expected to join the Integrated Program in Neuroscience (IPN) at McGill University as a PhD student, supervised by Prof. Gustavo Turecki. My PhD research is expected to involve single-cell genomics of major depressive disorder.

If you’re interested in collaborating or learning more about my work, feel free to contact me at zlfwhu@outlook.com.

Academic Background

Sep 2023 – Jun 2026: M.S., Psychiatry and Mental Health, Wuhan University
Sep 2018 – Jun 2023: M.B., Clinical Medicine, Central South University

Research Interests

Single-cell genomics and transcriptomics
scRNA-seq, scATAC-seq, and spatial transcriptomics
Postmortem brain transcriptomics
Proteomics and multi-omics integration
post-GWAS functional interpretation
Computational psychiatry and biomarker discovery

Psychiatric disorders impose a substantial and growing burden on global health, yet their diagnosis still relies largely on clinical symptoms rather than objective biological markers. Although genetic studies have identified numerous risk loci, translating these findings into disease mechanisms remains challenging because psychiatric disorders involve complex interactions among genetic, environmental, cellular, and circuit-level factors.

Recent advances in single-cell omics, spatial transcriptomics, spatial proteomics, and multi-omics integration are transforming the way we study the human brain. These approaches allow us to examine disease-associated molecular alterations at cellular and spatial resolution, helping to reveal vulnerable cell types, altered cellular states, and tissue-context-dependent molecular programs in psychiatric disorders.

By integrating postmortem brain resources, single-cell genomics, genetic findings, and clinical phenotypic information, we may better understand how psychiatric risk is manifested in specific brain cell populations. Such integrative approaches may also help uncover shared and disorder-biased biological alterations across psychiatric diagnoses and contribute to the discovery of potential biomarkers.

My current research focuses on single-cell transcriptomics and multi-omics integration in psychiatric disorders, with an emphasis on major depressive disorder. I am interested in identifying disease-associated cell-state programs and potential biomarkers by integrating scRNA-seq, postmortem brain transcriptomic data, genetic findings, proteomics, and other omics layers.

Moving forward, I plan to investigate psychiatric disorders through cross-disorder and cross-region single-cell analyses, particularly in major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. I aim to explore shared and disorder-biased cellular changes underlying psychiatric symptoms, and to interpret post-GWAS signals in disease-relevant brain cell types and cellular states.

In parallel, I am interested in applying spatial technologies such as Visium HD and CODEX to further refine brain atlases of psychiatric disorders. Through this work, I hope to contribute to a more mechanistic and clinically relevant understanding of mental illness, from genetic risk to cell-type-specific molecular programs and potential translational biomarkers.