New faculty brings expertise in microfluidics and biosensor development

The Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy is pleased to announce that Yufeng Zhao has joined the biomolecular sciences research division as Assistant Professor – Status, effective September 1, 2023.

Assistant Professor Zhao brings scientific expertise in the rapidly expanding areas of microfluidics and biosensor development for use in disease diagnostics and biomanufacturing. As one of three Research Officers brought on by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) as part of the NRC and U of T’s collaborative Centre for Research and Applications in Fluidic Technologies (CRAFT), Assistant Professor Zhao will also be based at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy where his work offers broad opportunity for collaboration with many of our research faculty and lab groups in biomedical sciences.

“I look forward to close collaboration with faculty and research teams at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, the opportunity to get involved with training the next generation of scientists and enhancing the collaboration between U of T and the National Research Council of Canada,” said Zhao.

Prior to joining CRAFT in April 2023, Zhao completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University’s School of Medicine and a PhD in chemistry from the University of Alberta. Employing techniques like directed evolution, a process that expedites natural selection in the lab against user-defined goals, Zhao’s work will focus on accelerating the process of making new proteins including biosensors to help researchers better understand disease mechanisms with the goal to help develop new therapeutics for a range of diseases.

“I look forward to close collaboration with faculty and research teams at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, the opportunity to get involved with training the next generation of scientists and enhancing the collaboration between U of T and the National Research Council of Canada,” said Zhao.

Earlier this year, Zhao was awarded a CRAFT Project Award to support the integration of directed protein evolution with machine learning and fluidics. This work will be led along with Associate Professor Keith Pardee, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, who is co-principal investigator and will help to bridge fields and apply the approach to applications in health care and biotechnology. 

Welcome Assistant Professor Zhao!