CUHK (SZ) Professor Zhu Selected as a Shenzhen Peacock Plan Team Leader

The list of the Shenzhen Peacock Plan Teams 2016 has been published recently. The Anti-breast Cancer New Drugs Research Team, headed by Professor Bao-Ting Zhu at the School of Science and Engineering, has been selected. This is a second team from the University that will receive a research grant totaling RMB30,000,000.

The team plans to engage in the preclinical research and development of a series of new drugs for the treatment of the estrogen-dependent breast cancer, and this pioneering research project will include the design, chemical synthesis, pharmacologic efficacy testing, and toxicity assessment of the new drugs.

Team leader Professor Bao-Ting Zhu is an expert on molecular and cellular studies of cellular events and drugs. He was selected into the National Thousand-Talents-Plan in 2012 and currently serves as Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Science and Engineering at CUHK (SZ).

Professor Zhu obtained his B.M. and M.S. degree from Fudan University Shanghai Medical College in 1985 and 1988, respectively. He obtained his PhD degree in pharmacology from University of Texas in 1992. In 1998, he assumed an independent faculty position as an Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina. While working there, he received promotions to Tenured Full Professor in 2004, and endowed Distinguished Professor in 2005. A year later, he was appointed as the Director for the Department of Basic Pharmaceutical Sciences. In 2007, Prof. Zhu joined the University of Kansas School of Medicine to assume a prominent academic position as the endowed William W. Abercrombie Distinguished Professor in Cancer Research.

One of Prof. Zhu’s research interests centers around the better understanding of the biochemical, molecular, and cellular mechanisms underlying the pharmacological actions of steroid hormones and drugs. In recent years, Prof. Zhu has also developed a strong interest in studying the memory and cognitive functions of the brain, in an effort to better understand the molecular and chemical mechanisms underlying these vital neuronal functions. Professor Zhu has authored or co-authored over 130 publications with 7000 citations. Professor Zhu has been invited to edit or review papers for more than 30 international journals, including Cancer Res, Endocrinology, JPET and PNAS. He is also a reviewer of several research foundations, including NIH, NSF, SNSF, and The Research Grants Council of Hong Kong.