Dr. Grace Guoying Zhou, the founder, chairperson of the Board and chief executive officer of the company, is a well-respected scientist in academic research and biopharmaceutical industry. With over 30 years of distinguished experience in the fields of virology and immunology, Dr. Zhou is widely recognized as the inventor of the T-VEC backbone, which has become the gold-standard platform for the development of oHSV and other oncolytic immunotherapies. Dr. Zhou has been the co-author on over 55 peer-reviewed publications and 55 patents, and obtained industry-wide recognition for her breakthrough discovery of HSV-1’s cancer-selective targeting mechanism.

Since 1987, Dr. Zhou has held diverse academic roles across several distinguished institutions, including research associate at the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, Chinese Academy of Science (中國科學院上海生物化學研究所) from July 1987 to April 2000, research assistant, instructor, assistant professor and associate professor at the University of Chicago from December 1998 to October 2013, and professor at the Guangzhou Medical University (廣州醫科大學) from October 2013 to October 2018. In addition to the distinguished success in discovery, research and clinical development, Dr. Zhou possesses comprehensive business development experience in the biopharmaceutical industry.

Dr. Zhou has received numerous honors, including the State Council Special Allowance (國務院特殊津貼) in 1998, the Women in Science Award selected by International Society for Antiviral Research in May 2019, China’s Top Ten Outstanding Women Entrepreneurs (中國十大傑出女企業家) in December 2021, China’s Leading Innovators (中國創新領軍人物) in January 2024 and China’s Top Ten Outstanding Innovative Women (中國十大傑出創新女性) in December 2024.