Zuo-Zhong Wang, USC, Keck School and Zilkha researcher, 46
https://hscnews.usc.edu/archives/pdf08/1420.pdf
The Keck School of Medicine community
mourns the loss of Zuo-Zhong Wang, a Keck
School faculty member and researcher at the
Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute who died in an
accident while hiking in the San Dimas
Mountains last weekend. He was 46.
Wang, associate professor in the
Department of Cell and Neurobiology at the
Keck School, was a noted neuroscientist
whose discoveries had a profound impact on
his field. His research focused on how
synapses form, using the neuromuscular junction as a model system. His recent work with
colleague Lin Chen on the crystal structure
of a nicotine receptor was noted as a landmark accomplishment in the fields of structural biology and neuronal cell signaling.
Wang joined the Keck School of
Medicine in 2005 and served on the faculty
of the USC Programs in Biomedical and
Biological Sciences. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Second
Medical University in Shanghai, China, and
received his Ph.D. in physiology from the
University of Utah School of Medicine and
did his postdoctoral training with Zach Hall
at the University of California, San Francisco
and the National Institutes of Health.
He became an assistant professor and was
promoted to associate professor with tenure
in the Department of Neurobiology at the
University of Pittsburgh prior to joining the
Keck School.