Dr Hui Zhao

Overview

My group focuses on developing bioinformatics approaches for early cancer detection, disease monitoring, and treatment response prediction, with an emphasis on liquid biopsy. I am particularly interested in analyzing circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) features such as fragment length distribution, end motifs, copy number alterations, mutation signatures, and DNA methylation patterns, which provide valuable information for non-invasive cancer diagnostics. A central aim of my work is to integrate these molecular signals using machine learning and artificial intelligence to develop robust, interpretable tools for ctDNA-based cancer profiling. By advancing multi-feature integration, I seek to improve sensitivity and specificity in clinical applications and ultimately translate these methods into tools that enhance cancer detection and patient outcomes.

• Artificial Intelligence
• Bioinformatics
• Biomarkers
• Prevention and Screening
• Resistance to Therapy

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Team

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Key Publications

ctDNA monitoring using tumour-informed copy number analysis. EMBO Mol Med (2026). PMID: 41857451

A standardised framework for robust fragmentomic feature extraction from cell-free DNA sequencing data. Genome Biol (2025)26:141. PMID: 40410787

Tumour hypoxia causes DNA hypermethylation by reducing TET activity. Nature (2016)537(7618):63–68. PMID: 27533040

Mismatch repair deficiency endows tumors with a unique mutation signature and sensitivity to DNA double-strand break. eLife (2014):e02725. PMID: 25085081

Exome sequencing reveals HINT1 mutations as a cause of distal hereditary motor neuropathy. Eur J Hum Genet (2013)22:847–850. PMID: 24105373

See recent publications

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Major Funding

• 2026: Barts Charity Seed Grant. “Tumour informed cfDNA approach for Joint SNV and Indel tracking to detect earlier platimum/PARPi Resistance”, £70,000

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Biography

I began my bioinformatics journey with a Master’s degree from KU Leuven, Belgium, followed by a PhD focused on preprocessing and biclustering of high-throughput microarray expression data

I then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Translational Genetics at VIB KU Leuven, specialising in translational cancer genetics. My research during this time centred on using next-generation sequencing data to investigate tumour biology, including the relationship between cellular hypoxia and DNA methylation, the impact of DNA methylation on HIF transcription factor binding and tumour immunotolerance, and somatic mutation patterns in DNA repair–deficient tumours.

In 2019, I joined Professor Nitzan Rosenfeld’s lab at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute as a Senior Bioinformatics Analyst, where my work focuses on developing and applying liquid biopsy analysis methods to enable early cancer detection, disease monitoring, and treatment response prediction.

I started at Barts Cancer Institute as a Lecturer in April 2025.

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