Research Program: Transplant Biology & Therapy
Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Hematology-Oncology

zhoux058@umn.edu
612-626-2961 — office

Dr. Zhou is an assistant professor of pediatrics, Division of Hematology-Oncology and Blood and Marrow Transplantation, and the Masonic Cancer Center. Dr. Zhou received his medical degree in 1983 from Jiangxi Medical College in Nanchang, People's Republic of China, his master of science degree in microbiology and immunology in 1986 from Tongji Medical University, Wuhan, PRC, and his doctorate degree in immunology in 1994 from Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. Dr. Zhou conducted postdoctoral fellowships at the Center for Cancer Research and the Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1994-1997) and at the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center, Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore, Maryland (1997-1999). Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Minnesota in September 2002, Dr. Zhou was on the faculty at Johns Hopkins Oncology Center where he cloned HLA class I restricted human kidney cancer antigen using T cells isolated from GM-CSF-tumor cell vaccinated patients and studied lentiviral vector-mediated gene transfer in human T lymphocytes.

His current mission is to study how bone marrow transplant cures leukemia and causes graft-versus-host disease. He is developing an independent research program in studying what target molecules induce graft-versus-tumor and graft-versus-host disease post bone marrow transplantation. Dr. Zhou's long-term research interest focuses on T cell responses to tumor antigens and cancer vaccines. He is a member of four professional associations. He has 24 peer-reviewed research publications.

Research Interests

• Human cancer immunology
• Transplant biology and therapy

Selected Publications

Ravi, R., Fuchs, E.J., Jain, A., Pham, V., Yoshimura, K., Prouser, T., Jalla, S., Zhou, X., Garrett-Mayer, E., Kaufmann, S.H., Schulick, R.D., Pardoll, D.M., Bedi, A. Resistance of cancers to immunologic cytotoxicity and adoptive immunotherapy via X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein expression and coexisting defects in mitochondrial health signaling. Cancer Res. 2006; 66:1730-1739.

Huang, X., Wilber, A., Bao, L., Dong, T., Tolar, J., Orchard, P., Levine, B. L., June, C. H., McIvor, S., Blazar, B. R., and Zhou, X. Stable gene transfer and expression in human primary T cells by the Sleeping Beauty transposon system. Blood. 2006;107:483-491

Zhou, X., Jun, D. Y., Huang, X., Huang, L.-Q., Mautner, J., Yu, Z., Thomas, A. M., Mo, W., Robbins, P. F., Pardoll, D. M., and Jaffee, E. M. Diverse CD8+ T cell responses to renal cell carcinoma antigens in a patient treated with an autologous GM-CSF gene-transduced renal tumor cell vaccine. Cancer Res. 2005;65:1079-1088.

Zhou, X., Cui, Y., Huang, X., Yu, Z., Thomas, A. M., Pardoll, D. M., Jaffee, E. M., and Cheng L. Lentiviral-mediated gene transfer and expression in established human tumor antigen-specific cytotoxic T cells and primary unstimulated T cells. Human Gene Therapy. 2003. 14:1809-1105.