Meet

Shaohui Hu

Director of Proteomic Sciences

CDI Labs - Baltimore

Follow your dreams, and use the skills you enjoy.

Meet Shaohui

The attention to detail that Shaohui Hu demonstrates on a day-to-day basis makes him an invaluable member of the CDI Labs team. Shaohui has over 20 years of experience in protein microarrays.

What is your role at CDI Labs?

I am responsible for supervising the proteomic research activities and client projects at CDI Labs. This includes overseeing various key areas such as high-throughput subcloning and protein purification, protein microarray production, and their applications in autoantibody profiling, biomarker discovery, interactomics studies, antibody specificity characterization, and substrate identification. I am also responsible for providing training to proteomics scientists, overseeing the optimization and troubleshooting of array products and services, and actively contributing to the R&D of new applications and products in the field.

What's the best part of your job?

Advancing research capabilities and delivering valuable results to clients. It’s really exciting and satisfying when I develop new applications of our protein arrays or hear back from clients that our array data makes a lot of sense and leads to new discoveries for them.

What did you do before joining CDI Labs?

I have been working on protein microarray technology for more than 20 years. I started building the human proteome array with Professor Heng Zhu at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2006, and first published the technology in a Cell paper in 2009. I also developed the VirD array technology with Professor Zhu. In 2013, I joined CDI to continue expanding and optimizing the HuProt Human Microarrays and VirD Microarrays, and to make them available to researchers all over the world.

What do you do for fun?

I enjoy driving and listening to orchestra concerts.

If you could cure any disease, what would it be and why?

It would be cancer because it has been the top incurable disease for decades. Early diagnosis is the key to improving cancer outcomes by enabling actions to be taken at the earliest possible stage. Our HuProt and PhIP-Seq technologies are perfect platforms to identify cancer autoantibody biomarkers, which can sometimes be detected a few years before clinical symptoms appear.

Who is your favorite influencer and why?

Professor Heng Zhu, the pioneer of protein microarray technology who invented the first proteome array, had the most significant influence on my career. Professor Zhu not only inspired me with the beauty and power of protein microarrays, but also mentored me to learn everything about this amazing high-throughput technology and pursue it as my career.

What would be your best career advice?

Follow your dreams, and use the skills you enjoy.