Asst. Prof. Zhang, Anni
Assistant Professor
Email: [email protected]
Personal Lab Webpage: https://genomiverse.net/
AnniZ Lab focuses on "Uncovering Diverse Microbial Mechanisms through AI."
Our long-term aim is to make bacteria more useful to the society by uncovering novel microbial mechanisms via AI. For example, our lab is developing protein-ligand binding models to predict bacterial environmental sensing and protein-DNA binding models to predict gene regulation. By combining these models, we can guide bacteria engineering to synthesize new compounds and produce industrial products more efficiently.
Her research aims include:
- Guide microbiome therapeutics design
- Discover novel genetic exchange mechanisms
- Enhance phage therapy
- Predict phage host range
- Identify novel phage defense
- Develop bacteria-based cancer therapy
- Predict DNA-protein binding patterns
Research Areas
Bioinformatics, AI, Gut microbiome, Phage
Jeff Gaston
Senior Research Scientist
Senior Research Scientist
Peng Ken Lim
PhD Student
PhD Student
Tang Zhiqi
PhD Student
PhD Student
- Jeffry Gaston, Eric Alm, and An-Ni Zhang. "X-Mapper: fast and accurate sequence alignment via gapped x-mers." Genome Biology 26.1 (2025): 15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-024-03473-7
- Jeffry Gaston, Eric Alm, and An-Ni Zhang. “Fast and Accurate Variant Identification Tool for Sequencing-Based Studies.” BMC Biology 22, no. 1 (2024): 90. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-024-01891-4
- An-Ni Zhang, et al. "CRISPR-Cas spacer acquisition is a rare event in human gut microbiome." Cell Genomics 5.1 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xgen.2024.100725
- An-Ni Zhang, Jeffry Gaston, …, and Tong Zhang. "An omics-based framework for assessing the health risk of antimicrobial resistance genes." Nature Communications 12, no. 1 (2021): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25096-3
- An-Ni Zhang, Li-Guan Li, Liping Ma, Michael R. Gillings, James M. Tiedje, and Tong Zhang. "Conserved phylogenetic distribution and limited antibiotic resistance of class 1 integrons revealed by assessing the bacterial genome and plasmid collection." Microbiome 6, no. 1 (2018): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-018-0516-2