Kang Zhang, MD, PhD is the founding director of Institute for Genomic Medicine, Co-Director of BioMaterials and Tissue Engineering Center at Institute of Engineering in Medicine, Chief of Ophthalmic Genetics, Professor of Ophthalmology and Genetics at University of California San Diego. Dr. Zhang obtained his M.D. with Magna Cum Laude honours from Harvard Medical School and MIT joint MD program and his PhD in genetics from Harvard University. He did his postdoctoral training also at Harvard. He completed his residency in ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University and his retina fellowship at University of Utah. He was a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and the University of Utah.

Among his honours include AAAS fellow, AIBME fellow, memberships in Association of American Physicians and American Society of Clinical Investigation, Outstanding Achievement Award of Chinese Ophthalmological Society, Chang Jiang Scholar, Burroughs Wellcome Fund Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research; Lew R. Wasserman Merit Award and Senior Investigator Award from Research to Prevent Blindness; Charles Schepens Award for Excellence in Retina Research; and Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions Clinician Scientist Award. He has numerous grants from National Institute of Health including an NIH Director’s Transformative RO1 and other foundation grants. Dr. Zhang has published over 160 peer-reviewed manuscripts in top peer-reviewed journals- covering a wide range of topics in genetics, epigenetics, stem cells, nano-engineering and 3D printing, and clinical trials. His discovery that HTRA1 is a major susceptibility gene for age-related macular degeneration is listed as one of “top-ten breakthroughs in 2006” by Science.