Research direction: Epigenetics, 3D genome and transcriptional regulation
In 2017-2021, Zhu worked at the US Jackson Genomic Medicine Laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher. In December 2021 she joined Zhejiang University. Her study is focused on analyzing the transcriptional regulation on diseases and their developmental processes with the cutting-edge genomic technologies. Her research achievements include the discovery of the outer circular DNA of chromosomes in cancer serving as a mobile enhancer to promote the expression of chromosome genes, and the discovery that the transcription factor Sox2 readjusts the self-renewal ability of neural stem cells by participating in the three-dimensional genome structure. Her research papers have been published in Cancer Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Trends in Cancer and other journals, and have been reported as highlights by Molecular Cell and Cancer Discovery and been cited with illustrations by such journals as Annual Review and Nature Genetics.
