Zhao Lai, PhD

Dr. Zhao Lai, joined the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute in 2011 with major responsibilities as Director of newly established Genome Sequencing Facility (GSF) to lead the next generation sequencing (NGS) efforts at UTHSCSA. She received her doctoral degree on Developmental Biology from the Institute of Developmental Biology and Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and completed the post-doctoral fellowship on Evolutionary/functional genomics at Indiana University Bloomington.

Dr. Lai was trained as genomics scientist with over 25 years of extensive research experience and has coauthored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and several book chapters. Dr. Lai is the founding director of the Genome Sequencing Facility (GSF) in the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute (GCCRI) at NCI-designated Cancer Center and Associate Professor/Research in the Department of Molecular Medicine at UT Health San Antonio (UTHSA). The GSF uses high throughput genomic technology including next generation sequencing, single cell analysis and spatial transcriptomics, to generate high quality genomic data and provide analytic support for large number of faculty members internally and externally. With the data generated from the GSF and supported by the analytic and bioinformatics group, the GSF has quickly become an essential component in the UTHSA and fundamentally transformed the genomics research environment for our faculty members. Dr. Lai has continually established and significantly expanded the NGS research activities to develop a comprehensive portfolio of NGS protocols, supported diverse biomedical genomics research applications and numerous funded projects, and contributed both experimentally and intellectually to over 80 publications. Dr. Lai is the PI of two NIH Shared Instrumentation S10 grants and NIH NCI Cancer Research Specialist R50 grant. Dr. Lai is committed to provide her expertise and guidance to conduct the required high-throughput genomics experiments for many members of UT Health San Antonio.