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Shuguang Zhang is an American biochemist. He is a Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Shuguang Zhang’s research focuses on designs of biological molecules, particularly proteins and peptides.

Early life and education
Shuguang Zhang received his B.S. in biochemistry from the Sichuan University in Chengdu, China in 1980. In 1988 he received his Ph.D.in USA in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988 to work with Alexander Rich. Today he works as a professor at the Center for Biomedical Engineering and as Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab.

Career and Scientific Work
Zhang is the widely acknowledged founder of the field of self-assembling peptides, which stems from a discovery he made while working for Alexander Rich. He discovered the first Z-DNA binding protein, which he named Zuotin. In sequencing the Zuo gene, and the subsequent analysis of its Zuotin protein sequence, he noticed a remarkable alternating sequence where every other amino acid is hydrophobic alanine and positively charged lysine or negatively charged glutamic acid with the sequence n-AEAEAKAKAEAEAKAK-c (EAK16), the discovery of the first self-assembling peptides.

Zhang is the founder of the biopharmaceutical companies 3-D Matrix Medical Technology Technology  and OH2 Laboratories. He served on the board of scientific advisors for Acorda Therapeutics (1995-2001). He serves on the editorial board of PLoS One (since 2006) and on the advisory board for World Scientific Book Series: Series in Structural Biology (since 2011).

Shuguang Zhang discovered a group of peptides that spontaneously spontaneously organize into aggregates and networks under physiological conditions. He received numerous recognitions and awards for this discovery. Zhang is also a consultant to numerous companies worldwide. His own company 3D Matrix developed numerous products for tissue regeneration, wound healing and nerve regeneration. Shuguang Zhang founded another company NZ3i to utilize the peptide nanostructures, which has positioned itself on the market as a supplier for the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries.

Awards

 * 1998-2002: Whitaker Foundation Investigator at MIT
 * 2003:	Fellow of Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS fellow)
 * 2004:	R&D100 award for 3DMatrix
 * 2006:	Guggenheim Fellowship (sabbatical at the University of Cambridge)
 * 2006: Wilhelm Exner Medal of Austria
 * 2011:	Elected to American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering
 * 2020: Emil Thomas Kaiser Award from the Protein Society