Hao Zhu, M.D.
Hao Zhu earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from Duke University, followed by an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and MIT. He underwent clinical training in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Zhu performed postdoctoral research in George Daley’s laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital from 2008 to 2012. He joined the faculty of Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern in 2012. Dr. Zhu is the Director of CRI's Tissue Regeneration Program and a co-leader of the Development and Cancer Research Program in the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. As a medical oncologist, he treats hepatocellular carcinoma patients in the Multidisciplinary Liver Cancer Clinic at Parkland Memorial Hospital.
Dr. Zhu is the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists (2012), a CPRIT Scholar Award (2012), a Stand Up To Cancer Innovative Research Grant (2016), and the Mark Foundation Emerging Leader Award (2021). Dr. Zhu holds the Nancy B. and Jake L. Hamon Distinguished Chair in Therapeutic Oncology Research.
The cellular basis of liver regeneration has been highly contentious. We generated 12 CreER strains to perform systematic, side-by-side comparisons of hepatocytes in various zones, including populations previously implicated as stem cells (
Somatic mosaicism is a new frontier for human genetics and represents an untapped source of disease genes. While somatic mutations can now be identified using deep sequencing, the functional analysis of such mutations remains challenging and will require new approaches. We are currently using in vivo screening and lineage tracing as well as CRISPR technologies to rapidly model the phenotypic impact of somatic mutations. Just as germline sequencing has identified genes that have transformed fields, the discovery of genes that are recurrently mutated in chronically injured tissues but not in cancer has the potential to transform our understanding of regeneration and wound healing.
It is widely assumed that cancer risk increases with regenerative capacity, but we suspect the relationship is more complicated. In mammals, chronic organ damage in the skin, lung, intestine, and liver is strongly associated with cancer, but it is possible that the potent regenerative abilities of these organs serve to preserve tissue integrity, reduce inflammation, and resist transformation in the context of recurrent injury.
