- Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering
- Phone: 979-845-5571
- Email: xjzhu@tamu.edu
- Office: CHEN 212
- Website: Research Website

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)