Zhenxiang Gao, PhD

Research Assistant Professor
Center for Artificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery
School of Medicine

Research Information

Research Interests

My research focuses on developing AI-based computational frameworks for drug discovery, particularly in identifying FDA-approved drugs that can be repurposed to treat complex diseases such as substance use disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, and diabetes-related conditions. Another significant part of my research involves conducting retrospective cohort studies by analyzing electronic health records (EHR) to assess the clinical outcomes and efficacy of drug candidates in real-world settings. My work integrates AI technology with clinical research, aiming to enhance therapeutic strategies and improve patient outcomes.

Publications

  1. Zhenxiang Gao, Ian Dorney, Pamela B. Davis, David C. Kaelber, and Rong Xu. “Association between selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and mortality following COVID-19 among patients with Alzheimer’s disease.” Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 2024.

  2. Zhenxiang Gao, Pingjian Ding, Rong Xu. “IUPHAR review - Data-driven Computational Drug Repurposing Approaches for Opioid Use Disorder.” Pharmacological Research, 2024.

  3. Zhenxiang Gao, T. John Winhusen, Maria Gorenflo, et al. “Potential effect of antidepressants on remission from cocaine use disorder - A nationwide matched retrospective cohort study.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 2023.

  4. Zhenxiang Gao, Lingyao Li, Siyuan Ma, Qinyong Wang, Libby Hemphill, Rong Xu. “Examining the Potential of ChatGPT on Biomedical Information Retrieval: Fact-Checking Drug-Disease Associations.” Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 1-9, 2023.

  5. Zhenxiang Gao, Maria Gorenflo, David Kaelber, Vincent Monnier and Rong Xu. “Drug repurposing for reducing the risk of cataract extraction in patients with diabetes mellitus: integration of artificial intelligence-based drug prediction and clinical corroboration.” Frontiers in Pharmacology, 14, 1181711, 2023.

  6. Vincent M Monnier, Zhengxiang Gao, Maria Gorenflo, David C Kaelber, Rong Xu. “Melatonin suppresses the long-term risk of cataract surgery in diabetic individuals: An AI based study with clinical corroboration.” Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 64(8), 2465-2465, 2023.

  7. Zhenxiang Gao, T. John Winhusen, Maria Gorenflo, Udi E. Ghitza, Pamela B. Davis, David C. Kaelber, and Rong Xu. “Repurposing ketamine to treat cocaine use disorder: Integration of artificial intelligence-based prediction, expert evaluation, clinical corroboration, and mechanism of action analyses.” Addiction, 2023.

  8. Zhenxiang Gao, Xinyu Wang, Blake Blumenfeld Gaines, Xuetao Shi, Jinbo Bi, and Minghu Song. “Fragmentbased Deep Molecular Generation using Hierarchical Chemical Graph Representation and MultiResolution Graph Variational Autoencoder.” Molecular Informatics, 2200215, 2023.

  9. Xin Tun, Evan J. Wang, Zhenxiang Gao, Kathleen Lundberg, Rong Xu, and Di Hu. “Integrin β3-Mediated Cell Senescence Associates with Gut Inflammation and Intestinal Degeneration in Models of Alzheimer’s Disease.” International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 24(6), 5697, 2023.

  10. Zhenxiang Gao, Yiheng Pan, Pingjian Ding. “A knowledge graph-based disease-gene prediction system using multi-relational graph convolution networks.” In AMIA 2022 Annual Symposium, 2022.

  11. Zhenxiang Gao, Pingjian Ding, Rong Xu. “KG-Predict: A knowledge graph computational framework for drug repurposing.” Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 132, 104133, 2022.

Education

Doctor of Philosophy
Computer Science
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
2015
Master of Engineering
Software Engineering
BeiHang University
2010