Dr Ying Zhu | UNSW Research

Keywords

lab-on-a-chip devices

Biography

Dr Zhu is a Senior Lecturer from the School of Biomedical Engineering at UTS. She is also holding an adjunct position with the School of Clinical Medicine at UNSW Sydney. Dr Zhu completed her PhD in the area of optical biosensors with Professor Justin Gooding (Editor-in-Chief of ACS Sensor) from 2011 to 2015 in Australia’s top biosensor and biodevice group at UNSW. Dr Zhu’s subsequent postdoc work (2015-2017) in the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College (ranked 55th among American engineering schools) extended her expertise in biosensors to the field of translational cancer research. Dr Zhu was supported by Cancer Institute NSW Early Career Fellowship (2017-2020) to further establish her work in using nanoplasmonic biosensors for cancer diagnosis. She joined UTS in 2020 as a Lecturer and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2023. Dr Zhu was a recipient of DECRA 2024.

My Grants

Dr Zhu has secured $1.35m external funds. She was the lead CI in 90% of them ($1.2m). Below is the detailed list:

Ying Zhu, Optical Metasurface for Single Small Extracellular Vesicle Analysis, DECRA 2024, A$450,000, 2023
Ying Zhu, Phoebe Phillips, Nham Tran, George Sharbeen, A blood test for early detection of pancreatic cancer by single extracellular vesicle analysis, Pankind Innovation Grants, A$99,697, 2022
Ying Zhu, Yong Li, Phoebe Phillips, Peter J. Reece, Multiparameter analysis of exosomes for non-invasive early detection of pancreatic cancer using a point-of-care nanoplasmonic sensor, Pankind Innovation Grants, A$96,033, 2020
Yong Li, Ying Zhu, Peter J. Reece, Chee Khoon Lee, Raymond Wong, Combining nanoplasmonic profiling with machine learning for non-invasive early detection of ovarian cancer using plasma exosomes, Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation, A$134,026, 2020 (external)
Ying Zhu, Rapid isolation and analysis of circulating exosomes using label-free nanoplasmonic sensors for non-invasive breast cancer diagnostics, Cancer Institute NSW Early Career Fellowship, A$572,268, 2017-2020 (external)

My Qualifications

PhD, Chemistry, The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia (01/2015)
Bachelor’s degree, Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China (06/2009)

My Awards

Young Investigator Award, 2018, Lion Club of Kogarah Inc.
1st Price, Basic Science, Medical Research Symposium 2018, St George & Sutherland Hospital
Rising Star Award, 2018, Australian Association of Chinese Biomedical Scientists
Cancer Institute NSW Early Career Fellowship, 2017-2020
Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad, 2014
UNSW Tuition Fee Scholarship, 2011-2014

My Research Activities

Dr Zhu is the group leader of the Laboratory of In-Vitro NanoDiagnostics. She is rapidly gaining international recognition as an emerging leader in her field, recognised by her publications in prestigious journals. Out of her 29 publications, 81.8% are in the top 10% of journals and 91% are in the Q1 journals. Ying’s works have received 843 citations with an H-index of 17, including a 1% highly cited paper in Clinical Medicine. Ying has secured $1.89m research funds. She was the lead CI in 90% of her external funds, including two prestigious fellowships: DECRA and Cancer Institute NSW Early Career Fellowship. Dr Zhu’s current research focuses on advancing diagnostic technologies by translating frontier nanoscale tools. She works in a multidisciplinary field across chemistry, physics, materials, nanotechnology and biomedicine. She has been dedicated to translational biomedical research via the development of new analytical technologies using a multi-disciplinary, highly collaborative, “bench-to-bedside” approach.