Guangrong Zheng, Ph.D.

Guangrong Zheng, Ph.D., is a professor in the department of medicinal chemistry at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy. He received his B.S. in medicinal chemistry from Fudan University and his Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica. He then completed his postdoc training in drug design and discovery at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy. Before he joined UF in March 2018, he was a faculty member at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Pharmacy.

Dr. Zheng’s lab focuses on the design, synthesis and structure-activity relationship study of both synthetically derived and natural product-based compounds for potential therapeutic uses or as molecular probes for biochemical/pharmacological research. His research also involves the development of efficient synthetic methodologies and strategies to facilitate the rapid construction of compound libraries. Ongoing projects in his lab include 1) development of small molecules that can induce targeted protein degradation as potential treatments for cancer; 2) development of senolytic agents, small molecules that can selectively kill senescent cells, as potential treatments for age-related diseases; and 3) development of radioprotective agents to improve the outcome of cancer radiotherapy or as radiation counter-measure agents.