Recently, TIME magazine officially announced the TIME100 Health 2026 list of the most influential people in global healthcare. Xu Zhen, a 1997 alumna of Southeast University (SEU) majoring in Biomedical Engineering and a distinguished Chinese scientist, was recognized for her contributions to histotripsy—an ultrasound tissue ablation technology. She has turned sound waves into an invisible "scalpel," achieving revolutionary breakthroughs in non-invasive cancer treatment worldwide.
Xu Zhen was admitted to Southeast University in 1997 through a direct recommendation program and studied in the Department of Biological Science and Medical Engineering. This department was founded in October 1984 by Wei Yu, a founding academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the first female president of SEU. It has since become a major research hub for biomedical engineering in China. During her four-year undergraduate studies, Xu laid a solid professional foundation by learning cutting-edge knowledge in biomedical engineering. Influenced by Academician Wei Yu's philosophy of“integrating medicine and engineering,” she developed the aspiration to translate engineering technologies into medical innovations—a vision that later became a key impetus for her pioneering work in ultrasound therapy.
After graduating from Southeast University in 2001, Xu went to the United States for further studies. She is currently a tenured professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan, a member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for Therapeutic Ultrasound, and an associate editor of IEEE-affiliated journals.
Xu Zhen and her colleague debugging equipment.
Xu Zhen and fellow SEU alumni Hanchuan Peng, Lintao Cai elected as AIMBE Fellows in 2019.
Xu's research focuses on ultrasound therapy. She ventured into the uncharted research territory of histotripsy, boldly challenging mainstream academic views by proposing a disruptive technique that uses high-intensity ultrasound to generate microbubbles inside tumors. The explosive energy of these bubbles precisely destroys cancer cells, enabling "non-invasive ablation." Her team's histotripsy device received FDA approval in 2023, becoming the world's first non-invasive liver cancer treatment device. It has since been used to treat over 4,000 liver cancer patients globally, with clinical trials for pancreatic and kidney cancer underway.
Xu Zhen introducing a new device that uses ultrasound to treat cancer.
Xu Zhen receiving the 2026 Sony Women in Technology Award with Nature.
For her groundbreaking achievements, Xu has been elected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), a Fellow of the IEEE, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) —the first woman of Chinese descent in the field of ultrasound medicine to receive this honor. Her team's research has been published in top international journals such as Nature Biomedical Engineering, and its core findings have been incorporated into international safety standards for therapeutic ultrasound. Nature commented that histotripsy technology has brought minimally invasive cancer treatment into the era of cellular precision. Xu recently also received the 2026 Sony Women in Technology Award with Nature and was featured in a special report by Nature. Her inclusion in the 2026 TIME list is the highest recognition of her long-standing commitment to cross-disciplinary innovation in medicine and engineering, and her role in reshaping the global paradigm of cancer treatment.
