The Systems Pharmacology AI Research Center (SPARC) is excited to announce a new addition to its leadership team, Sixue Zhang, Ph.D.

Zhang joins the center as associate director of Digital Chemistry and senior scientist in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science, effective March 4, 2025.

Zhang’s research aims to push the boundaries of AI in predicting therapeutic activities, pharmacokinetics, and drug safety, while also developing novel drug structures. He is a highly collaborative scientist and has worked with numerous Birmingham, Alabama researchers throughout the last several years.

Zhang comes to UAB having served as head of the AI Drug Discovery group at Southern Research, where he collaborated with more than 20 multidisciplinary teams from academia and industry on over 60 drug discovery projects. During his time there, Zhang focused on providing computational support for integrated drug discovery projects.

“I participated in over 60 drug discovery projects covering oncology, neurology, infectious diseases, and other therapeutic areas. For example, we quickly discovered novel antiviral inhibitors with the aid of deep learning AI and collaborators' wet lab capabilities, which would help with fast-pandemic response.”

He also worked closely with Birmingham’s biotech startup hub, Station 41, which supports local innovators looking for seed funding to develop new technologies and intellectual property.

As a staff member of SPARC, Zhang previously provided computational support to several centers, including the Antiviral Drug Discovery and Development Center, the Cystic Fibrosis Research Center, Research Center of Excellence in Arsenical Countermeasures, Center for Clinical and Translational Science, and the former Alabama Drug Discovery Alliance.

Looking ahead, Zhang believes that UAB is poised to be a leader in AI-driven drug discovery, thanks to its interdisciplinary collaborations and strong partnerships. “Taking advantage of the multidisciplinary expertise at UAB and complementary capabilities from strategic partners, UAB, together with its partners, could become a vanguard of AI drug discovery,” he said.

“UAB can also be an excellent education platform to prepare the new generation of workforce for AI-related jobs.”

Zhang hopes to have both wet lab and dry lab collaborators working together on integrated drug discovery.