Xianghai grew up in Shanghai and obtained his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Hong Kong, China. He performed his research at Columbia University Medical Center, focusing on cardiovascular disease. He established the mechanisms underlying ER stress-induced macrophage apoptosis and autophagy during atherosclerotic plaque necrosis and identified mechanisms by which ceramide causes apoptosis and autophagy in the failing heart. He also worked on epigenetic regulation and transcriptional regulation of heart failure with an emphasis on long non-coding RNAs and their interacting proteins to expand the mechanistic understanding of heart failure.
He joined Dr. Vunjak-Novakovic's lab in 2024. He is working on creating a non-human tended micro-physiological system, also known as organ-on-chips, to study the physiological responses to space flight-related stressors, using multiple engineered tissue models from gene-edited iPSCs.
Xianghai Liao
Associate Research Scientist