With a new wave of precision medicine comes the cross-integration of AI and biotechnology. HymonBio takes technological innovation as their core driving force, and chief scientist Dr. Zhang Zilai is the key driver. Today, we are going into her scientific research to explore the infinite possibilities of merging AI and precision medicine.
Deepening Cross-Cutting Fields: from the fertile soil to the frontiers of Stanford.
As with any starting point of scientific research, Dr. Zhang’s eyes were full of enthusiasm. During her PhD study at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, she has been deeply involved in the field of gene expression regulation and bioinformatics, laying a solid foundation for molecular biology and data analysis. “At that time, I was acutely aware that breakthroughs in life sciences could not be achieved without the support of data tools. The key to understanding diseases was hidden in massive biological codes, and AI technology can unlock them.” This eureka moment became her initial intention to cross fields.
Subsequently, Dr. Zhang attended Stanford University to carry out her PhD to further explore AI technology in life sciences while in one of the world’s top scientific research environments. The strong interdisciplinary atmosphere of Stanford University gives her the opportunity to cooperate with top scholars in different fields, deeply integrate big data analysis and cancer molecular mechanism research, and form the scientific research concept of “taking AI as a tool and clinical needs as a guide”. “Stanford’s experience has taught me that good scientific research should not only pursue academic heights, but also solve practical clinical points, which coincides with the mission of HymonBio to ‘make precision medicine benefit the public’.”
AI-Assisted Early Screening: solving a core problem of cancer detection
As a senior AI data scientist, Dr. Zhang Zilai’s core competitiveness lies in the precise combination of AI technology and in HymonBio’s core technology to overcome the key bottleneck in the field of pan-cancer early screening.
“The main difficulty is how to accurately capture low concentrations of cancer signals from massive cell-free nucleic acid data, distinguish between benign and malignant tumors, and avoiding false positives and negatives,” Dr. Zhang explains. She led the team to build a proprietary AI algorithm. Based on the Nobel Prize-winning PCR platform and HymonBio’s technology that increases sensitivity 100-fold, she conducted in-depth mining and analysis of trace cell-free nucleic acid, greatly optimizing sensitivity and specificity of pan-cancer detection. At present, this product’s performance is comparable to, or even surpasses, those of similar international products.
Pilot Scientific Research Team: lay out the future from a national perspective
Being selected into a national talents project is not only a high recognition of Dr. Zhang Zilai’s scientific research ability, but also highlights her influence in the field. As HymonBio’s chief scientist, she not only works in the front line of scientific research, but also shoulders the important task of leading the team and laying out the direction of future research. “The development of precision medicine is changing with each passing day. We must keep looking forward and make continuous technological breakthroughs in order to consolidate our core competitiveness.”
Under her guidance, HymonBio’s R&D further strengthened integration and innovation of AI and biotechnology, focused on technical iteration and expansion of pan-cancer early screening, and laid out new directors in psychiatric disease early screening. The team also made great efforts to improve quality of research and development. “The advantage of AI is continuous self-learning and optimization. We are training more accurate diagnostic models based on massive clinical data. In the future, we expect it will achieve earlier and more accurate cancer warning signals, and even provide new early screening for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease.”
Original Intention: let precisions medicine benefit more people.
From basic research in the laboratory to the industrialization of technology, Dr. Zhang has always adhered to her original intention of “protecting life with scientific research.” HymonBio’s products can break the international monopoly, significantly reduce detection costs, and allow more people to enjoy the most of precision medicine—the scientific values she pursues. “Scientific research is not a floating castle. It is more meaningful than any academic honor for it to be more affordable for the general public, and use advanced technology and early detection and treatment of cancer.”
Dr. Zhang is full of expectations of the future. She said that she will continue to lead the team in AI-enabled precision medicine with the responsibility of a national level talent, promote the continuous breakthroughs of HymonBio in pan-cancer early screening and infectious disease detection, help strengthen industry-university research cooperation and accelerate the transformation of scientific research achievements.
Post time: Jan-23-2026