Zhen Cheng

Honors and Awards

• Young Investigator Award, Melanoma Research Alliance (2009)
• IDEA Award, California Breast Cancer Research Program (2008)

Professional Education

Postdoctoral Advisees

Zheng Miao , Gang Ren

Web Site Links

• Cancer Molecular Imaging Chemistry Laboratory

Research Interests

The overall objective of my laboratory is to develop novel molecular imaging probes and techniques for non-invasive detection of cancer and its metastasis at the earliest stage, so that cancer can be cured or transformed into a chronic, manageable disease. The techniques developed in my research will allow a close examination of the molecular, metabolic and physiological characteristics of cancers and their responses to therapy. In order to achieve this goal, my lab is aimed to identify novel cancer biomarkers with significant clinical relevance, develop new chemistry for probes preparation, and validate new strategies for probes high-throughput screening.

Publications

• Ultrasmall Near-Infrared Non-cadmium Quantum Dots for in vivo Tumor Imaging. Gao J, Chen K, Xie R, Xie J, Lee S, Cheng Z, Peng X, Chen X. Small. 2009
• PET of malignant melanoma using 18F-labeled metallopeptides. Ren G, Liu Z, Miao Z, Liu H, Subbarayan M, Chin FT, Zhang L, Gambhir SS, Cheng Z. J Nucl Med. 2009; 50 (11): 1865-72
• (64)Cu-Labeled Affibody Molecules for Imaging of HER2 Expressing Tumors. Cheng Z, De Jesus OP, Kramer DJ, De A, Webster JM, Gheysens O, Levi J, Namavari M, Wang S, Park JM, Zhang R, Liu H, Lee B, Syud FA, Gambhir SS. Mol Imaging Biol. 2009
• Melanin-targeted preclinical PET imaging of melanoma metastasis. Ren G, Miao Z, Liu H, Jiang L, Limpa-Amara N, Mahmood A, Gambhir SS, Cheng Z. J Nucl Med. 2009; 50 (10): 1692-9
• A 2-helix small protein labeled with 68Ga for PET imaging of HER2 expression. Ren G, Zhang R, Liu Z, Webster JM, Miao Z, Gambhir SS, Syud FA, Cheng Z. J Nucl Med. 2009; 50 (9): 1492-9