Yong Zhu, PhD

Dr. Yong Zhu is an Associate Professor at Yale University School of Public Health and Assistant Director of Yale Cancer Center for Global Cancer Epidemiology. Dr. Zhu's research interests are oriented towards the use of the molecular epidemiological approach in the study of genetic susceptibility biomarkers and their interactions with environmental exposures in human disease development. Dr. Zhu has been developing and validating novel phenotypic and genotypic assays and biomarkers for several cancer types, including non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, breast, bladder, lung and prostate cancer. By utilizing various techniques in genetics, epigenetics, cytogenetics, cell biology, and computational biology, his studies have identified biomarkers that can characterize inherited predisposition and cellular response to environmental factors. Current research focuses on studying the role of two transcriptional factors, circadian genes and small noncoding RNAs, in tumorigenesis.