Dr. Xiaoqi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy. His proposal is titled ‘Nanoparticle STING Immunotherapy Against TP53-Mutated Acute Myeloid Leukemia’. His mentors will be: Brian Brown, PhD, and Joshua Brody, MD.
Dr. Xiaoqi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy, Icahn Genomics Institute, Precision Immunology Institute, Tisch Cancer Institute, at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS). He has a cross-disciplinary background in gene & drug delivery, biomaterials, immunology, and gene editing, with a specific focus on nanoparticle medicine for in vivo immune cell reprogramming and metalloimmunotherapy. Throughout his career, he has initiated and contributed to multiple emerging research areas. During his MS research (2013-2016) in Dr. Zhuang Liu’s lab at Soochow University, he introduced the concept of “red blood cellbased artificial antigen-presenting cells (RBC-aAPC)” to train T cells for cancer cell killing. This platform was later advanced by Rubius Therapeutics and progressed into Phase I clinical trials. In Dr. Xiaoqi’s PhD training (2016- 2021) under Dr. James Moon at the University of Michigan, he introduced the concept of “metalloimmunotherapy” and demonstrated the powerful immunotherapeutic potential of metal ions. Dr. Xiaoqi’s work on STING-activating metalloimmunotherapy performed “best-in-class” cancer immunotherapy efficacy and established the foundation of Saros Therapeutics, which is now advancing toward its first IND clinical trials. From 2021-2024, he joined Editas Medicine, a pioneer CRISPR biotech company, as its first nonviral delivery scientist. At Editas, he built and led the nonviral delivery team, focusing on developing RNA-LNP platforms for in vivo gene editing. His work progressed three AsCas12a-LNP drug candidates from initial concepts to non-human primate (NHP) studies and demonstrated the first highly effective in-vivo Hematopoietic Stem Cells (HSC) gene editing for sickle cell disease therapy. Upon returning to academia, Dr. Xiaoqi has rapidly established innovative research projects and collaborations at Mount Sinai.
ConduITS is supported by NCATS of the NIH’s CTSA Program. Any use of CTSA-supported resources requires citation of grant number UL1TR004419 awarded to ISMMS in the acknowledgment section of every publication resulting from this support. Adherence to the NIH Public Access Policy is also required.
