Dr. Zhou earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, in 2017. His doctoral research focused on developing small peptide-based stimuli-responsive hydrogels and polymers for applications in 3D cell culture, drug delivery, and artificial actuators. He began his professional career in 2017 as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) and recently promoted to Instructor (2024) in UTSW’s Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Program. As a radiochemist, Dr. Zhou has been responsible for manufacturing various radiopharmaceuticals under current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) guidelines for clinical trials of investigational PET drugs. Through his postdoctoral training and professional experience in radiochemistry, Dr. Zhou has established expertise in molecular imaging research, focusing on the radiolabeling of small molecules and drug conjugates for brain imaging, cancer and infectious disease diagnosis and therapy. His current research focuses on developing amino acid and peptide-based tracers for imaging and radioligand therapy. He has published several studies on the application of 11C-labeled D-glutamine radiotracers for infection detection in various murine models. Additionally, he is actively involved in preclinical and clinical trials of PSMA-targeted probes and radioligands.