Tulane’s Tony Hu awarded one of nation’s highest honors in clinical diagnostics

The Academy of Diagnostics and Laboratory Medicine (ADLM) has awarded Tulane University research scientist Tony Hu, PhD, the 2025 Academy Award for Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Chemistry in a Selected Area of Research.

One of the nation’s highest honors in clinical diagnostics, the award recognizes clinical chemists whose pioneering research efforts have placed them among the world’s foremost experts in their fields. ADLM is a global scientific and medical professional organization dedicated to clinical laboratory science and its application to healthcare.

Hu, the Weatherhead Presidential Chair in Biotechnology Innovation at Tulane, leads the Center for Cellular & Molecular Diagnostics at Tulane University School of Medicine where he and his lab have developed revolutionary advancements in disease diagnostics. This includes blood-based and portable tuberculosis diagnostic tools, which can boost TB testing access and accuracy for children, as well as CRISPR-based tools that can detect infectious diseases sooner than conventional methods. 

"This award...reflects the university’s growing role in advancing biomedical research that makes a real impact on people’s lives. It’s not just a personal milestone — it’s a meaningful moment for our entire community.”

Tony Hu, PhD

ADLM President Dr. Anthony Killeen congratulated Hu and this year’s award recipients whose “exceptional achievements in research, service, education and advocacy have advanced the ability of lab experts to solve challenging medical problems and to ensure that high-quality care is accessible to all.”

The award honors Hu’s cutting-edge research and commitment to improving diagnostics of pediatric diseases and bettering outcomes for children, projects intended to “make the deepest impact for those who are often left out of diagnostics innovations,” he said.

“It’s a tremendous honor to receive this award from ADLM. It represents years of hard work by my entire team and the strong support we've had from our collaborators and institutions,” Hu said. “I’m especially proud to share this recognition with Tulane University, where I’ve had the privilege of building and leading a center focused on intelligent molecular diagnostics. This award shines a light on the cutting-edge work coming out of Tulane and reflects the university’s growing role in advancing biomedical research that makes a real impact on people’s lives. It’s not just a personal milestone—it’s a meaningful moment for our entire community.”

Hu’s journey to developing significant advancements in nanomedicine and biomarker discovery began with a background in engineering. 

“What makes this award especially meaningful is that it doesn’t just recognize technological innovation — it reflects the clinical laboratory community’s deep endorsement of our technologies’ real-world value,” Hu said. “Historically, this award has gone to individuals with strong clinical or medical backgrounds. I come from an engineering background with no formal medical training, so to be recognized by clinical chemistry experts is both rare and deeply humbling. This recognition shows that our work has crossed the boundary from engineering into clinically meaningful solutions, which has always been our ultimate goal.”

Hu will receive the award on July 29, 2025, at the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine Annual Meeting in Chicago. Hu is the 53rd recipient of the award, which was first given out in 1973. 

“We’re very grateful for the recognition and the progress we’ve made so far, and we will continue to work to ensure our research has real-world impact,” Hu said. “That’s our goal: to take what we’ve built at Tulane and transform science into solutions that reach patients across borders and across health systems.”