[3] In 1938, she came to the UK for a year's postgraduate study at the University of Cambridge under Dorothy M. Needham, as a research student at Newnham College.
She moved to the Hillman Hospital, Birmingham, Alabama, from 1941 to 1942, and then to the International Cancer Research Foundation, Philadelphia, from 1942 to 1945.
[3] In 1945, she joined the Needhams in Chongqing as a consultant for nutrition at the Co-operation office and in 1948, moved to Paris to work at UNESCO at the secretariat for natural sciences.
[4] From 1957 onwards, she was a research fellow of the Wellcome Medical Foundation, working with Dr Joseph Needham in Cambridge on the "Science & Civilisation in China" project.
[3] Among the work on which she is credited as co-author are: The Lu Gwei-Djen Prize for the History of Science awarded by Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge is named in her honour[5] as is the Lu Gwei Djen Research Fellowship awarded by Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge - a position previously held by biophysicist Dr Eileen Nugent.