Gong Cheng, Professor

Dr Cheng’s studies focus on the molecular dissection of the mosquito-virus-host interphase to identify key factors involved in viral pathogenesis, transmission, and immunity in mosquitoes/hosts, thus developing novel approaches to control these viral diseases spreading in nature; with multiple mosquito-borne flaviviruses being pathogens of particular interest. Dr. Cheng has identified multiple key factors in both host blood and mosquito to determine the effectiveness of flavivirus acquisition from infected hosts to fed mosquitoes. Besides, Dr. Cheng’s studies aim at understanding the molecular basis of flavivirus infection in mosquitoes and the viral transmission from infected mosquitoes to naïve hosts. These pioneering works published in Nature (2017) Science (2024), Cell (2010, 2022), and their sister journals, offering an insight into the emergence and re-emergence of flaviviruses in nature, thus providing an avenue for disease prevention. Due to his original scientific research and contributions to flavivirus studies, Dr. Cheng has been honored with many awards, such as the first prize of Natural Science Award of MOE in 2023, the New Cornerstone Investigator from 2023, the Science Xplore Award in 2022, the first prize of Natural Science Award of Beijing in 2020, the C.C. Tan Award for Life Sciences and Medicine in 2018 and the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholar in 2018.