Litao Zhang, Ph.D. came to the United States from China to pursue her Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry in 1990 at the University of Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. She started at Aventis as a group leader focusing on assay design and technology evaluation for hit identification. Litao moved on to Dupont Pharmaceutical as a Principal Research Scientist. When BMS purchased Dupont Pharmaceuticals, Litao joined BMS as Associate Director for Lead Evaluation, eventually moving to the Hopewell site to head up the newly created lead evaluation function in Applied Biotechnology to focus on lead optimization in drug discovery. In 2008, she was appointed Executive Director for Lead Evaluation for three BMS locations and the Mechanistic Biochemistry group in New Jersey. Litao is very passionate about what she does at BMS – supporting drug discovery programs and encouraging a diverse group of colleagues to share information and learn from each other making the team stronger and sharpen the team’s ability to cope with challenges as we implement the biopharma model.