• Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering
Zhu

Educational Background

  • Postdoctoral Associate, Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - 2019
  • Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow, Wyss Institute - 2019
  • Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley - 2017
  • B.S., Biosciences (DII), Nanjing University, China - 2012

Research Interests

    • Natural product biosynthesis
    • Xenobiotic metabolism
    • Biochemistry
    • Enzymology
    • Microbial systems
    • Biomolecular engineering
    • Secretion systems
    • Synthetic biology
     

Awards & Honors

  • Maximizing Investigators' Research Award for Early Stage Investigators, National Institutes of Health – 2022
  • Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, The Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering – 2022

Selected Publications

  • Qian, L., Ouyang, H., Gordils-Valentin, L., Hong, J., Jayaraman, A.*, Zhu, X.* “Identification of Gut Bacterial Enzymes for Keto-Reductive Metabolism of Xenobiotics” ACS Chem. Biol., 2022, 17(7), 1665–1671.
  • Ouyang, H., Hong, J., Malroy, J., Zhu, X.* "An E. coli-Based Biosynthetic Platform Expands the Structural Diversity of Natural Benzoxazoles" ACS Synth. Biol., 2021, 10(9), 2151–2158
  • Zhu, X., Shieh, P., Su, M., Bertozzi, C. R., Zhang, W. “A fluorogenic screening platform enables directed evolution of an alkyne biosynthetic tool.” Chem. Commun. 2016, 52, 11239-11242.
  • Zhu, X., Su, M., Manickam, K., Zhang, W. "Bacterial genome mining of enzymatic tools for alkyne biosynthesis." ACS Chem. Biol. 2015, 10, 2785-2793.
  • Zhu, X., Zhang, W. "Tagging polyketides/non-ribosomal peptides with a clickable functionality and applications." Front. Chem. 2015, 3: 11.
  • Zhu, X., Liu, J., Zhang, W. “De novo biosynthesis of terminal alkyne-labeled natural products.” Nat. Chem. Biol. 2015, 11, 115-120. (selected as NCB’s greatest hit)