Dongxing Zha, PhD 

Dongxing Zha, PhD, is a seasoned drug development leader with more than two decades of experience dedicated to translating immune-oncology discoveries into innovative anti-cancer therapies. He currently serves as the Chief Technology Officer at Alloy Therapeutics. Dr. Zha co-founded and led KeywayTM TCR Discovery, where KeywayTM excels in TCRm discovery and engineering, providing discovery services to the biopharma ecosystems. 

Before joining Alloy, Dr. Zha led Oncology Research for Biologics and Immunotherapy Translation (ORBIT) platform at MD Anderson. This unique group comprised clinicians, researchers, and drug development experts collaborating to develop biologic and cell-based therapies. Under his leadership, ORBIT advanced multiple programs from the preclinical stage to clinical studies. Dr. Zha oversaw and drove the first TCRm program in clinical study for AML and MDS patients. 

In addition to his role at Alloy and MD Anderson, Dr. Zha has more than a decade of experience on protein engineering in big pharma and biotech. He worked in antibody discovery and development at Merck & Co, Inc, and GlycoFi where he served as the program lead for several projects at various stages of development in oncology, autoimmune and cardiovascular diseases, and neurodegeneration. He also invented yeast display technology for antibody and glycosylation engineering. Dr. Zha obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Huazhong Agricultural University in China and conducted his postdoctoral research on directed evolution at Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung and Novo Nordisk.