Assistant Professor
David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Zhu currently is an assistant professor at UCLA pathology. The primary research interest of the her lab is exploring the unique potential of liquid biopsy markers, including circulating rare cells and extracellular vesicles (EVs), to facilitate the clinical translation and validation of cancer and prenatal diagnostic platforms.
Dr. Zhu completed her residency training in 2012 in the Pathology Department of Guangdong Provincial Hospital of TCM (China) where she served as an attending pathologist for the next five years until her transition to the United States. Her clinical practice covered surgical pathology in gastrointestinal cancer, thyroid cancer, and breast cancer. From 2013 to 2017, she also served as the founding Director of the Molecular Pathology Laboratory of the Pathology Department, where she developed and validated a collection of laboratory-developed tests (LDTs) for detecting oncogenic mutations for targeted cancer therapy. Dr. Zhu’s experience in surgical pathology and molecular pathology equipped her with a unique strength for identifying unmet clinical needs in translational research for cancer diagnostics.
Dr. Zhu's academic journey continued at UCLA since 2017. Since joining UCLA, Dr. Zhu has been actively engaged in establishing translational research programs that bridge the gap between technology development and clinical applications. These programs center on the development and validation of liquid biopsy-based diagnostic platforms for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis and cancer detection. The translational research programs involve close collaboration with clinical faculties across many departments at UCLA, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and institutions outside California. Departments such as Liver Transplant Surgery, Pancreatic Cancer Surgery, Thyroid Surgery, Medical Oncology, and Maternal Fetal Medicine all benefit from her contributions.
