Email

xi.chen@bcm.edu

Positions

Assistant Professor & CPRIT Scholar

Molecular & Cellular Biology/Breast Center
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX US

Member

Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas United States

Education

Postdoctoral Fellowship at Laurie Glimcher Lab, Weill Cornell Medical College

01/2015 - New York, New York United States

Postdoctoral Fellowship at Laurie Glimcher Lab, Harvard School of Public Health/Harvard Medical School

09/2012 - Boston, Massachusetts United States

PhD from Huck Hui Ng Lab, Genome Institute of Singapore, A*STAR/National University of Singapore

02/2009 - Singapore, Singapore

Honors & Awards

CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research

Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) (03/2015 - 02/2019)

Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Career Development Fellow Award

Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (07/2009 - 07/2012)

NIH MERIT Award for Early Stage Investigator

NCI/NIH (07/2018 - 06/2023)

Professional Interests

• ER protein quality control; Tumor Microenvironment; Cancer Immunology; Therapy resistance; Stem Cell Maintenance; Unfolded Protein Response; Endoplasmic Reticulum-Associated Degradation;

Professional Statement

My laboratory studies the function and mechanism of Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) protein quality control machinery in tumor microenvironment, therapy resistance and stem cell niche. I have broad background in ER stress, Unfolded Protein Response (UPR), immunology, transgenic and preclinical animal models, cancer biology and stem cell biology. My earlier studies focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms governing stem cell self-renewal. I was the first to discover the genomic regions targeted by lineage specific transcription factors cluster that exhibit cell type specific enhancer activities (Cell, 2008). My postdoctoral training at Dr. Laurie Glimcher’s laboratory focused on ER stress and UPR, where I established the molecular connection between UPR and oncogenesis (Nature, 2014). My laboratory at Baylor College of Medicine extends these accomplishments, with the long-term goals of elucidating the significance and mechanisms of ER proteostasis in cancer progression, metastasis, therapy resistance and anti-tumor immunity, and developing mechanism-based novel therapies to overcome therapy resistance and transform cancer to a manageable chronic disease. Our study published in JCI (2018) revealed a critical role of the IRE1/XBP1 branch of the UPR in mediating chemotherapy resistance. Another research area of my laboratory focuses on the role of ER proteostasis in microenvironment and niche regulation. We recently discovered an unprecedented function of the ER Associated Degradation (ERAD) machinery in maintaining stem cell-niche interaction and the identity of hematopoietic stem cells (Nature Cell Biology, 2020).

Selected Publications

• Xu L, Liu X, Peng F, Zhang W, Zheng L, Ding Y, Gu T, Lv K, Wang J, Ortinau L, Hu T, Shi X, Shi G, Shang G, Sun S, Iwawaki T, Ji Y, Li W, Rosen JM, Zhang XH, Park D, Adoro S, Catic A, Tong W, Qi L, Nakada D, Chen X "Protein quality control through endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation maintains haematopoietic stem cell identity and niche interactions." Nat Cell Biol. 2020 October 22; 22 (10): 1162-1169. Pubmed PMID: 32958856
• Zhao N, Cao J ,Xu LY, Tang QZ, Dobrolecki L, Lyu XD, Talukdar M, Lu Y, Wang XR, Wang YF, Liu X, Bu W, Sun Z, Ying HQ, Lin X, Feng XH, Hartig S, Li F, Shen HF, Chen YW, Han L, Zeng QP, Patterson J, Putluri N, Sicheri F, Rosen J, Lewis MT, Chen X "Pharmacological targeting of MYC-regulated IRE1/XBP1 pathway suppresses MYC-driven breast cancer." J Clin Invest. 2018 128 (4): 1283-1299. Pubmed PMID: 29480818
• Chen X#, Cubillos-Ruiz JR#. "Endoplasmic reticulum stress signals in the tumour and its microenvironment." Nat Rev Cancer. 2020 November 19; (#: Corresponding Author): Pubmed PMID: 33214692
• Chen X, Iliopoulos D, Zhang Q, Tang Q, Greenblatt MB, Hatziapostolou M, Lim E, Tam W, Ni M, Chen Y, Mai J, Shen H, Hu DZ, Adoro Z, Hu B, Song M, Landis MD, Ferrari M, Brown M, Chang JC, Liu XS, Glimcher LH "XBP1 promotes triple negative breast cancer by controlling the HIF1α pathway." Nature. 2014 508 (7494): 103-7. Pubmed PMID: 24670641