Dr. Zhanzhi Hu (aka Mike) is a parent of two children with a rare disorder. He is an ardent advocate for newborn screening and works tirelessly to bridge the gap between advanced technologies and the critical need of expansion of the newborn screening public health program. Mike is the cofounder of Project GUARDIAN, a nonprofit organization with the mission of advancing genomics based newborn screening. He also serves as a member of the Steering Committee and the chair of the Researcher Needs Workgroup at the Newborn Screening Translational Research Network (NBSTRN). Additionally, he is an Adj. Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University where he conducts newborn screening related research projects. Previously, Mike was the Associate Director of Product Development at Veracyte and had led the development team to successfully launch multiple diagnostic products during his tenure. Before joining Veracyte, Mike co-founded a precision medicine startup to pioneer advanced reproductive healthcare by genome scale carrier screening. Prior to that, Mike had led development teams at Complete Genomics and Affymetrix to develop next-generation sequencing technologies and products. Mike received his Ph.D. degree in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology from the University of Texas at Austin, and the B.S. degree in Cell Biology and Genetics from Peking University.