Congratulations to Rong Mei Zhang, MD on receiving the 2021 Dean’s Scholars award! The Dean’s Scholars program supports outstanding individuals committed to a career as a physician-scientist. Dr. Zhang’s project title was “Acute hyperglycemia promotes a proinflammatory monocyte phenotype to drive podocyte injury.”
Dr. Rong Mei Zhang joined the Department of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Lipid Research on July 1, 2020 as an Instructor in Medicine.
Dr. Zhang moved to St. Louis to start her residency in Internal Medicine at St. Louis University in 2014. After completing her residency, she worked as a hospitalist in the St. Louis area prior to starting her fellowship. She joined Washington University to complete her fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism from 2014-2017. During fellowship, she began translational research under the guidance of Dr. Carlos Bernal-Mizrachi evaluating the effects of acute hyperglycemia on monocyte metabolism. In collaboration with her secondary mentor, Dr. Ana María Arbeláez, she was involved in clinical trials utilizing euglycemic-hypoglycemic clamp studies in order to enhance her ability to perform monocyte evaluation in vivo. Dr. Zhang completed an additional research year of clinical fellowship to enhance her research experience.
Zhang continues her clinical care of patients with a focus on diabetes. She maintains clinical teaching responsibilities with fellows in consult services and residents in the medicine service. Dr. Zhang maintains a focus on her research interest in studying the contribution of monocytes to diabetic complications. She hopes to combine her clinical and research interest in diabetes and inflammation to help advance the care for patients.