Assistant Professor of Molecular Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery
Dr. Zhong is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin. Before joining UT Austin, he was a Research Scientist in the Prof. Sangeeta Bhatia’s lab in the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he developed inhalable biosensors capable of diagnosing early-stage lung cancer at the bedside and through a simple urine test.
Dr. Zhong earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science from Wayne State University under the mentorship of Professor Sandro da Rocha where he developed inhalable nanomedicine for lung cancer treatment. As a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Radiology at Stanford University with Professor Raag Airan, he engineered focused ultrasound-responsive drug delivery systems for noninvasive transcranial neuromodulation.
Dr. Zhong’s research integrates interdisciplinary approaches to engineer highly modular biomaterials-centric molecular probes and drug delivery systems that harness pathological microenvironment i) to profile disease-related enzyme biomarkers, ii) to enable noninvasive detection and therapeutic assessment of cancer and chronic diseases at the point-of-care, and iii) to achieve tissue- and cell-specific delivery of biologics particularly for gene editing and immunoengineering.
Integration of early detection with personalized therapies provides a transformative solution to clinical management of cancer and chronic pulmonary disorders. Tissue-microenvironmental features from tumor progression, metastasis to immune infiltration in cancer harbor numerous novel biomarkers and therapeutic opportunities for advancing precision diagnostics and medicine in oncology.
Zhong’s lab focuses on the development of next-generation programmable molecular diagnostics (e.g., biosensors, imaging probes) that can sense pathological microenvironment for biomarker discovery, early detection, longitudinal monitoring and response prediction of different therapies. Upon identification of unique microenvironmental features, Zhong’s lab engineers highly modular bio-responsive nanomaterials that enable targeted delivery of biologics (e.g., gene editors, protein-based therapeutics) at multiscale levels with tissue, disease, cellular, and/or subcellular resolutions.
Zhong’s lab is also interested in the formulation development and optimization for noninvasive drug delivery via pulmonary/nasal/transdermal routes. Collectively, Zhong’s lab hopes to advance precision health through integrating noninvasive approaches for biomarker identification, early detection, and timely drug intervention in a personalized and point-of-care manner to treat cancer, chronic pulmonary disorders and neurodegenerative diseases.
(* Equally contributed)
- Q Zhong, EKW Tan, A Shyamal, C Ngambenjawong, T Parisi, H Fleming, T Jacks, SN Bhatia. Engineering conditional fusogenic lipid nanocarriers for cytosolic delivery of macromolecular therapeutics. BioRxiv, 2024. doi.org/10.1101/2024.12.27.630514
- Q Zhong*, EKW Tan*, CM Martin, T Parisi, L Hao, J Kirkpatrick, T Fadel, H Fleming, S Bhatia. Inhalable point-of-care urinary diagnostic platform for early detection of lung cancer. *Equally contributed. Science Advance, 2024, 10, adj9591. Featured on the HHMI research news, MIT news, Medscape, Inside Precision Oncology, VIMA, Health Central, Medical News Today etc.
- L. Hao, R.T. Zhao, N.L Welch, Q Zhong, E.K.T. Tan, N.S. Harzallah, C. Ngambenjawong, H. Ko, H. Fleming, P.C. Sabeti, S.N. Bhatia. CRISPR-Cas-amplified urine biomarkers for multiplexed and portable cancer diagnostics. Nature Nanotechnology. 18, 798–807 (2023).
- AP Soleimany, JD Kirkpatrick, C Wang, AM Jaeger, S Su, Q Zhong, S Naranjo, CM Cabana, T Jacks, SN Bhatia. Multiscale profiling of protease activity in cancer. Nature Communications, 2022, 13.
- Q Zhong, B Yoon, M Aryal, J Wang, R Airan. Polymeric perfluorocarbon nanoemulsions are ultrasound-activated wireless drug infusion catheters. Biomaterials. 2019, 206, 73-86.
- J Wang*, M Aryal*, Q Zhong*, R Airan. Noninvasive ultrasonic drug uncaging maps whole-brain functional networks. Neuron, 2018, 100(3):728-738.e7.
- I Ganda*, Q Zhong*, M Hali, R Albuquerque, F Padilha, SRP da Rocha, J Whittum-Hudson. PAMAM dendrimers as a peptide vaccine platform: application to a chlamydia trachomatis infection model. International Journal of Pharmaceutics, 2017, 527(1), 79-91.
- Q Zhong, SRP da Rocha. Poly(amidoamine) Dendrimer-Doxorubicin Conjugates: In vitro characteristics and pseudo-solution formulation in pressurized metered-dose inhalers. Molecular Pharmaceutics, 2016, 13 (3): 1058-1072.