Zhonghua Gao

Gao Zhonghua is a leading brain development and gene regulation researcher who left his tenured position as associate professor at Pennsylvania State University's College of Medicine to join the newly established Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology (SUAT) as a full-time research professor, joining in early 2026 after more than two decades in the United States.

Gao earned his bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2001, then moved to the US to complete his PhD in physiology, biophysics, and systems biology through a joint program between Cornell University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He conducted postdoctoral research at NYU School of Medicine and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute before joining Penn State's faculty in 2015, earning tenure in 2022.

At Penn State, Gao led a multi-year, multimillion-dollar NIH-funded project studying how cells determine and maintain their identity, a process central to brain development that, when disrupted, can contribute to autism and cancer. His 2012 paper in the journal Cell on the assembly and function of gene-silencing proteins has been cited over 1,000 times. SUAT, officially approved in 2024, is a research-focused institution aimed at training talent for cutting-edge industries including biomedicine and artificial intelligence; Gao is now building his own research team there.