Zhen Gu PhD

Dr. Zhen Gu is a Qiushi Distinguished Chair Professor and Dean of the College of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Zhejiang University. He also serves as the Director of the National Key Laboratory of Advanced Drug Delivery and Release Systems and Director of the Key Laboratory of Advanced Drug Delivery Systems of Zhejiang Province. Dr. Gu received his B.S. degree in Chemistry and M.S. degree in Polymer Chemistry and Physics from Nanjing University. In 2010, he obtained a Ph.D. from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was a Postdoctoral Associate working with Dr. Robert Langer at MIT and Harvard Medical School. Before he moved to Zhejiang University in 2020, he was a Full Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Director of the NIH Biotechnology Training in Biomedical Sciences and Engineering Program at UCLA. From 2012 to 2018, he worked in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, where he was appointed as a Jackson Family Distinguished Chair Professor.

Dr. Gu’s group studies controlled drug delivery, biomaterials, and cell therapy. He has published over 290 research papers and applied for over 150 patents. He is a co-founder of five start-up companies, including Zenomics, ZCapsule and μZen. He is the recipient of the Felix Franks Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2019), the Young Investigator Award of CRS (2017), the Sloan Research Fellowship (2016), and the Pathway Award of the American Diabetes Association (ADA, 2015). MIT Technology Review listed him in 2015 as one of the top innovators under the age of 35 (TR35). He was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 2019 and the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE) in 2021. Dr. Gu serves as an Associate Editor for Nano Research, Drug Delivery and Translational Research, and Regenerative Biomaterials. He also served as the CRS China Chapter President (2021-2022), and Associate Editor for Science Advances (2019-2022).