Behind the Breakthroughs Alicia Zhou: The Dark Matter for Cancer Immunotherapy Translation
Feb 25, 2026
Alicia Zhou, CEO of the Cancer Research Institute and trained cancer biologist from MIT and Dana‑Farber, discusses using advanced genomics and multimodal datasets to map tumor–immune interactions. She highlights building open infrastructure like the CRI Discovery Engine, standardization and data harmonization, and how nonprofits catalyze collaboration, reproducibility, and trial access to accelerate immunotherapy translation.
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From Teen Lab Tech To CRI CEO
- Alicia Zhou describes her pathway from high-school bench technician to MIT undergrad in Bob Weinberg's lab and PhD work on TCGA at Dana-Farber.
- She recounts joining Color Genomics as CSO, leading All of Us work, then becoming CEO of the Cancer Research Institute to focus on immunotherapy data infrastructure.
Genomics Is The Foundation For Immunotherapy
- Genomics is the foundational layer for understanding immunotherapy because therapy perturbs the immune system, not the tumor directly.
- Single-cell and spatial genomics give the necessary resolution to map immune–tumor conversations in space and time.
Fund Shared Datasets Not Individual Competitive Edges
- Nonprofits should fund shared infrastructure and large open datasets that neither academia nor industry will prioritize.
- CRI's Discovery Engine will generate standardized, open multimodal perturbation data to train future biology AI copilots.
