Xianghai Liao

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 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 mechanistic understanding of heart
failure.
He joined Dr. Vunjak-Novakovic lab in 2024. He is working on creating 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.