Page 50 - Eclipse - Autumn/Winter 2023

Zhangrui Cheng retires after

26 years of service

Claire Wathes and Ali Fouladi

e are delighted to have this benefit from his knowledge of PUFAs He has had a key input into the writing
opportunity to remember and also his considerable expertise in of a number of major grants and has
and celebrate all that statistical analysis and epidemiology, published over 80 papers in his time at
WZhangrui Cheng has much of this work involving collaboration the RVC, many of which he is deservedly
achieved in his long career at the RVC. with Robert Abayasekara. the first author.
Zhangrui first moved to the UK from In 2003, Zhangrui was appointed to Although he has always been based in
China in 1993 to study for a PhD the staff, initially as a Senior Research the Reproduction Group, he continued to
in Veterinary Pharmacology at the Technician and subsequently as an collaborate with Peter Lees and Quintin
University of Glasgow, supervised by Assistant Lecturer and then Research McKellar on pharmacology projects
Quintin McKellar. Once he had added Fellow. He has always been enthusiastic requiring modelling of pharmacokinetics
this qualification to his existing BSc and to update his own knowledge and and pharmacodynamics, and he has
MSc in Veterinary Medicine, he joined became increasingly familiar with also undertaken consultancy work for
the RVC in 1997 as a Postdoctoral molecular biology techniques, functional veterinary pharmaceutic companies.
Research Assistant, in what was then the genomics and bioinformatic analysis. Back in 2008 he was responsible
Department of Veterinary Basic Sciences.
After Ali joined the RVC in 2006, his PhD for initiating a link between the RVC
This was initially to work on a project and research project students benefitted and Huazhong Agricultural University
looking into the effects of altering significantly from Zhangrui’s extensive at Wuhan in China. This led on to a
dietary polyunsaturated fatty acid expertise in cell and molecular biology fruitful collaboration between the two
(PUFA) composition on prostaglandin and his great knowledge in statistics. universities, including a number of joint
metabolism and fertility in lactating cows. grants and exchange visits.
Zhangrui has provided invaluable support
Zhangrui’s technical wizardry was soon to both of us, and his many talents Zhangrui is a very modest individual who
apparent as he established high- coupled with his willingness to help have has kept a low profile and many people
performance liquid chromatography been important to very many other RVC at the RVC are probably unaware of
(HPLC), cell culture and assay staff and students over the years. As his true worth. We personally are both
methodologies to measure the various well as providing basic support in lab really grateful to him for his unstinted
prostaglandins being produced. management, he has taken countless support and wish him all the best for his
undergraduate and PhD students under retirement. In true Zhangrui fashion, he
This was followed by two further
postdoctoral posts, which continued to his wing and patiently showed them how has kindly offered to continue to provide
to master a wide variety of techniques. future assistance as required!

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