Yi Zhang graduated from China Agricultural University in 1984 and received his Ph.D. from Florida State University in 1995. Yi Zhang is a HHMI Investigator, a Fred Rosen Chair Professor of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, and an Associate member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

Dr. Zhang is one of the most outstanding scientists in the field of epigenetics in the world. He not only made several landmark discoveries in the fields of epigenetics, chromatin and developmental reprogramming, but also contributed to the  translational studies of human diseases caused by abnormal regulation of chromatin-modifying enzymes (such as cancer, and drug addiction, etc.). Dr. Zhang’s group discovered and identified a variety of key epigenetic enzymes and revealed their roles in mammalian early embryonic development; discovered H3K27me3-mediated non-canonical genomic imprinting and demonstrated its role in X-chromosome inactivation and somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning; found and overcome the epigenetic barriers of somatic cell nuclear transfer, which contributed to the success of primates cloning. Recently, Dr. Zhang's group revealed a new concept and mechanism of apoptosis-activated innate immunity through the study of extrachromosomal circular DNA.

Dr. Zhang has published more than 180 highly influential papers. These studies have been cited over 75,000 times (H-index 114), making him one of the Top10 authors of high impact papers in the fields of molecular biology and genetics (ScienceWatch 2008), and one of the "most influential scientific minds" (ScienceWatch 2014).