Hao Zhu

Principal Investigator

Professor

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Rowan University

Contact Information:

Rowan University

Glassboro, NJ 08012


zhuh@rowan.edu

(856)256-4500 ext. 53551

Education

1998-2002 Ph.D. degree in Computational Chemistry (Professor Gilles Klopman, thesis advisor) Department of Chemistry, Case Western Reserve University

Thesis Title: Quantitative structure-activity relationship studies of the cancer-related properties of organic molecules

1995-1998 M.S. degree in Applied Chemistry (Professor Nai Shi, thesis advisor) Department of Technical Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China

Thesis Title: Activity and Conformation Changes of Dihydrofolate Reductase in Reverse Micelles

1991-1995 B.S. degree in Inorganic Chemistry (Professor Yuwen Liu, research advisor) Department of Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China

Research Project: Study the Gas Sensitivity of Novel Porphyrin Films

Professional Experience

2022-present Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Rowan University

2021-present Member, National Academies Committee, National Academy of Sciences (NAS)

2021-present Adjunct Professor, Division of Environmental & Population Health Biosciences, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

2020-present Member, NIEHS Center for Environmental Exposure and Disease, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Center, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

2016-present Member, Joint Graduate Program in Toxicology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

2020-2022 Professor, Department of Chemistry, Rutgers University, Camden

2011-2022 Member, The Rutgers Center for Computational & Integrative Biology

2017-2020 Graduate Program Director, Department of Chemistry, Rutgers University, Camden

2016-2020 Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, Rutgers University, Camden

2015-2020 Associate Member, NIEHS Center for Environmental Exposure and Disease, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Center, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

2015-2019 Member, Scientific Advisory Committee on Alternative Toxicological Methods (SACATM) at National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)

2011-2016 Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Rutgers University, Camden

2006-2011 Research Assistant Professor, School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

2002-2006 Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Chemistry, Case Western Reserve University

Research Advisor: Gilles Klopman, Ph.D.

Memberships in Professional Societies

  1. American Chemical Society (ACS)

  2. Society of Toxicology (SOT)

  3. American Society for Cellular and Computational Toxicology

Professional Service

Within the Professions:

2021 Ad Hoc Reviewer, Dutch Research Council Talent Programme Grant

2021-present Associate Editor, Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

2021 Ad Hoc Reviewer, European Research Council Consolidator Grant

2021 Guest editor, Journal of Hazardous Materials

2020 Guest editor, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering

2019-present Associate editor, Frontiers in Toxicology, Computational Toxicology and Informatics

2019 Ad Hoc Reviewer, NCATS ASPIRE Design Challenge Grant

2017-present Editorial board member, Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

2017-present ASCCT Annual Meeting Organizing Committee

2016 Ad Hoc Reviewer, US Army Grant

2016-present Peer reviewer of US EPA’s draft Provisional Peer-Reviewed Toxicity Values

2015 Ad Hoc Reviewer, U.S. EPA STAR Fellowship

2014-2019 Member, Acute Toxicity Study Group

Industrial Collaborations/Consultants:

2020-present Lubrizol, Cleveland, OH

2019-present ExxonMobil, Clinton, NJ

2011-present MultiCase Inc., Cleveland, OH

2017 Sanofi, Bridgewater, NJ

2014 Sigmapharm Laboratories, Bensalem, PA

2013 Biofunc Research, Cleveland, OH

Reviewing manuscripts for professional journals:

Nature Machine Intelligence

Nature Climate Change

Nature Communications

Environmental and Health Perspective

Environmental Science and Technology

Chemical Review

Science Advances

Nucleic Acids Research

Environmental Pollution

Nano Today

NanoImpact

Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling

ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering

ACS Infectious Diseases

Journal of Computational Chemistry

Risk Analysis

Toxicological Sciences

Toxicological Research

Chemical Research in Toxicology

Journal of Medicinal Chemistry

Frontier Toxicology

Medicinal Chemistry

SAR and QSAR in Environmental Research

Plos One

Scientific Reports

Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology

Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry Letters

Frontiers in Pharmacology

Applied In Vitro Toxicology

Molecular Pharmaceutics

Toxicology Research

Nano-Micro Letters

Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

BMC Bioinformatics

Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry

Achieve of Toxicology

Chemosphere

npj Computational Materials

Services within the School

Department of Chemistry, Rutgers

2019 Appointments and Promotions Committee

2019 Faculty Search Committee

2018 Appointments and Promotions Committee

2017-2020 Graduate Program Director

2017 Faculty Search Committee

2013 Faculty Search Committee

2012 Faculty Search Committee

Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, Rutgers

2015-present Undergraduate Curriculum Committee

2013 Faculty Search Committee

2011-2014 Executive Committee

2011-2014 Admission Committee

Rutgers University:

2016-present Appointments and Promotions Committee (Natural Science)

2012-2014 Rutgers China Office Advisory Council


Research Grants

Active:

NIEHS (R01ES031080) Zhu (PI) 05/19/20 - 02/28/25

Mechanism-Driven Virtual Adverse Outcome Pathway Modeling for Hepatotoxicity. Total cost: $2,271,161

NSF (2211489) Zhu (leading PI of the multi-PI project) 09/01/2022 - 08/31/2026

Collaborative Research: III: Medium: New Machine Learning Empowered Nanoinformatics System for Advancing Nanomaterial Design. Total cost: $800,000 ($350,000 to Zhu lab).

NIEHS (R35ES031709) Zhu (co-I) 07/16/21- 6/30/29

Discovering Chemical Activity Networks-Predicting Bioactivity Based on Structure. Subaward to Zhu lab: $576,818, PI: Robyn Tanguay at Oregon State University

ExxonMobil Zhu (PI) 01/01/20 - 12/31/22

Predictive and validated estrogen receptor models. Total cost: $240,005

Completed:

NIEHS (R15ES023148) Zhu (PI). 08/09/13 - 07/31/22

Mechanistic evaluation of chemicals that induce oral acute toxicity by novel read-across approaches using public big data. Total cost: $940,888

Lubrizol Zhu (PI) 05/01/20 - 12/31/20

Develop a hybrid DART model based on both chemical descriptors and biological data obtained from public domain. Total cost: $25,000

Colgate-Palmolive Zhu (PI) 5/1/17–6/30/20

Support read-across study of animal acute toxicity using public biological data. Total cost: $80,000

Rutgers Provost multidisciplinary

research grant Zhu (PI) 1/1/18–12/31/19

Digital Nano: Developing Virtual Nanomaterial Simulation (VINAS) Toolbox for Intelligent Nanomodeling Total cost: $14,000

The Johns Hopkins Center for

Alternatives to Animal Testing Zhu (PI) 3/1/16–2/28/19

Advance Predictive Modeling of Acute Toxicity by Big Data. Total cost: $70,000

Rutgers ORED-RUN-RBHS Grant

in Big Data Analytics Zhu (PI) 7/1/17–6/30/18

Big Data, Modeling and Validation to Advance Hepatotoxicity Prediction. Total cost: $40,000

Rutgers Provost research grant Zhu (PI) 1/1/17–12/31/17

CIIPro: a new read-across ADME-Tox predictor based on big data tool. Total cost: $3,390

Rutgers University's

Research Council Zhu (PI) 7/1/16–6/30/17

Advance QSAR to Big Data Profiling. Total cost: $3,920

Rutgers University's

Environmental Health Pilot Grant Zhu (PI) 1/1/17–3/31/17

From QSAR to big data profiling: the new generation of animal toxicity modeling. Total cost: $4,800

Rutgers University's

Environmental Health Pilot Grant Zhu (PI) 7/1/15–2/29/16

From QSAR to big data profiling: the new generation of animal toxicity modeling. Total cost: $15,000

Colgate-Palmolive Zhu (PI) 4/1/13–6/30/15

Profiling chemicals based on public bioassay data for the development of predictive computational acute toxicity model. Total cost: $40,000

Rutgers University's

Research Council Zhu (PI) 4/30/13–5/1/14 Quantitative structure in vitro-in vivo relationship. Total cost: $3,000

Colgate-Palmolive Zhu (PI) 7/1/11–6/30/13

Predictive Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship (QSAR) modeling of reproductive and developmental toxicity using integrated chemical and biological (HTS profiles) descriptors of molecules. Total cost: $35,414

The Johns Hopkins Center for

Alternatives to Animal Testing Zhu (PI) 2/1/08–1/31/11

Use of high throughput screening methods improves computational models for in vivo acute toxicity tests. Total cost: $45,000

EPA (RD832720) Zhu (co-PI of project 2) 9/1/05 – 8/31/10

Carolina environmental bioinformatics research center. Total cost: $4,500,000 (co-PI of $725,000 sub-award, PI: Tropsha)