Lizhi Cao

Lizhi Cao has a wealth of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Lizhi began their career in 2008 as a Graduate Research Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where they engineered in vitro systems to quantify protein unfolding and conformational changes, and developed in vivo animal models. In 2012, they completed an internship at Amgen, where they developed immunoassays and cell-based bioassays to characterize drug neutralizing antibodies. In 2014, they became a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Biogen, where they focused on the discovery of therapeutics for tissue injury and fibrotic diseases. Lizhi also developed automated image analysis algorithms of whole-slide images and custom software solutions in R and Python for multifactorial RNASeq analysis. In 2017, they joined Palleon Pharmaceuticals as a Director. During their time there, they led development of candidate molecules from discovery into IND, including support of nonclinical pharmacology, bioanalysis (PD/PD), clinical, and CMC activities. Lizhi also led biotherapeutic and antibody discovery/engineering, and was the project lead for the EAGLE program targeting the Glyco-Immune checkpoint.

Lizhi Cao obtained a B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley between 2004 and 2008. Lizhi then went on to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering from Emory University between 2008 and 2014. Lizhi also obtained a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology during the same time period.