Dr. Xin Zhao is an Associate Professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). She obtained her PhD at University College London, UK and postdoc training at Harvard University, USA, before joining PolyU. Her research interest is on Translational Regenerative Medicine, where she integrates multi-disciplinary approaches including material science, cell biology, engineering and medicine to modulate cell microenvironments, control cell behaviors and generate tissue-engineered organs, for addressing clinical issues.

So far, she has published >100 articles (with h-index of 45 in Google Scholar, 6 of which are ESI highly cited paper) in prestigious journals including Nat. Mater., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Chem. Rev., Mater. Today, Adv. Funct. Mater., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Biomaterials, Small. She is recognised in the list of “Highly Cited Researchers 2022” by Clarivate Analytics for their significant research impact. She has successfully attracted over 20 grants (⁓21 million) as principal investigator from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC, including the prestigious Collaborative Research Fund), Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF), Innovation and Technology Fund of Hong Kong (ITF), National Science Foundation of China (NSFC), NSFC-RGC Collaborative Research Fund, Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation, private company, etc. She is a recipient of the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars (2021, only 25 recipients in Hong Kong and Macau every year), Presidents Award-Outstanding Young Researcher 2022 (only 1 in PolyU every year), Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2022 and 2019 and the Engineering Research Grant Achievement Award of 2019. Due to her outstanding academic and research achievements, she is also appointed as Limin Young Scholar in Biomedical Engineering by PolyU (only 2 recipients in PolyU in 2022). With only 4 participants selected from Asia, she represented Hong Kong in the prestigious Asia Pacific Research Network Fellowship Program in 2018. In 2022, she also represented PolyU as the K. C. Wong Education Foundation visiting scholar to deliver talks in mainland China. Moreover, she is the recipient of the Mid-Career Award of Chinese Association for Biomaterials 2022 (only 3 in the world, only 1 selected in Hong Kong) and has been shortlisted for the “Nature Research Awards for Inspiring Science” in 2019 (10 shortlisted from >150 applicants globally). She is also a founding editor of Engineered Regeneration, associate editor of Bio-Des. Manuf., and guest editor for 11 other journals.