Biography

Dr. Xiaochan Xu obtained her Bachelor's degree in Information and Computational Sciences from Wuhan University in 2013. From 2013 to 2019, she conducted research in the laboratory of Professor Chao Tang at Peking University, where she earned her Ph.D. in Integrated Life Sciences. From 2019 to 2024, Dr. Xu worked at the Niels Bohr Institute and reNEW in Denmark, conducting theoretical research on the spatiotemporal self-organization phenomena resulting from interactions among different cell types. Her findings have applications in development, regeneration, and immunology. In August 2024, she joined Westlake University as a Research Associate Professor, where her current primary research interest is the mathematical modeling of organogenesis and its applications.

Research

Organogenesis requires regulation from multiple aspects, including cell fate determination, cell proportions, and morphogenesis. During development and regeneration, how a group of nearly identical precursor cells can precisely regulate different functional modules and self-organize themselves into normal, functional organs within a short time is a fundamental question that needs to be addressed in both basic research and stem cell medicine. Dr. Xiaochan Xu investigates the complexity of organogenesis from the following three directions:

1. Construct mathematical, physical language, and theoretical frameworks to reconstruct the dynamic process of organ formation, combining biological image data and multi-omics data,

2. Develop large-scale predictive mathematical models to study the correlation between cell fate determination and morphogenesis in organ formation, to uncover the fundamental theoretical principles and mechanisms.

3. Apply mathematical models to optimize organoid induction strategies, drug screening strategies, and intelligent disease diagnosis.

Representative Publications

1. Xu, X., Nielsen, B.F., Sneppen, K. (2024). Self-inhibiting percolation and viral spreading in epithe- lial tissue. eLife 13, RP94056.

2. Xu, X., Seymour, P.A., Sneppen, K., et al. (2023). Jag1-Notch cis-interaction determines cell fate segregation in pancreatic development. Nature Communications 14 (1), 348.

3. Bai, Y., Yang, Z., Xu, X., et al. (2023). Direct chemical induction of hepatocyte-like cells with capacity for liver repopulation. Hepatology 77 (5), 1550-1565.

4. Yang, Z.#, Xu, X.#, Gu, C., et al. (2022). Chemical Pretreatment Activated a Plastic State Amenable to Direct Lineage Reprogramming. Frontiers in cell and developmental biology 10, 865038.

5. Xu, X.#, Yang, W#., Tian, B., et al. (2021). Quantitative investigation reveals distinct phases in Drosophila sleep. Communications biology 4, 1-11.

6. Zhao, H., Zhang, Y., Xu, X., et al. (2021). Sall4 and Myocd empower direct cardiac reprogramming from adult cardiac fibroblasts after injury. Frontiers in cell and developmental biology 9, 386.

7. Yang, Z.#, Xu, X.#, Gu, C.#, et al. (2020). Chemicals orchestrate reprogramming with hierarchical activation of master transcription factors primed by endogenous Sox17 activation. Communica- tions biology 3, 1-10.

8. Zhao, T., Fu, Y., Zhu, J., Liu, Y., Zhang, Q., Yi, Z., Chen, S., Jiao, Z., Xu, X., Xu, J., Duo, S., Bai, Y., Tang, C., Li, C., and Deng, H. (2018). Single-cell RNA-seq reveals dynamic early embryonic-like programs during chemical reprogramming. Cell stem cell 23, 31-45.

Contact Us

Email: xuxiaochan@westlake.edu.cn