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 understanding cell-type-specific gene expression changes, cell-state programs, and identifying potential biomarkers in psychiatric disorders through single-cell transcriptomics 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 focus on single-cell transcriptomics and molecular profiling of major depressive disorder.

If you’re interested in collaborating or learning more about my work, feel free to contact me at lingfeng.zhang2@email.mcgill.ca.

Academic Background

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

Research Interests

Single-cell transcriptomics and cell-state biology
Gene expression regulation in psychiatric disorders
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 associated with psychiatric disorders, understanding how these variants influence gene expression, cellular function, and brain pathology remains a major challenge because psychiatric disorders involve complex interactions among genetic variation, transcriptional regulation, cellular states, environmental factors, and neural circuits.

Recent advances in single-cell transcriptomics, spatial transcriptomics, spatial proteomics, and multi-omics integration are transforming the way we study the human brain. These approaches allow us to characterize cell-type-specific gene expression, dynamic cellular states, and tissue-context-dependent molecular programs in psychiatric disorders.

By integrating postmortem brain transcriptomic resources, single-cell transcriptomics, genetic findings, proteomics, and clinical phenotypic information, we may better understand how psychiatric risk influences cell-type-specific transcriptional programs and cellular states in the human brain. 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 cell-type-specific gene expression changes and cell-state programs in psychiatric disorders, with an emphasis on major depressive disorder. I am particularly interested in integrating single-cell transcriptomic data, postmortem brain expression profiles, proteomic data, and genetic findings to identify disease-associated molecular signatures and potential biomarkers.

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 by linking genetic risk variants to cell-type-specific gene expression, regulatory programs, and disease-associated 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 variation to transcriptional dysregulation, altered cellular states, and potential translational biomarkers.