Jia Xu, Ph.D., Principle Investigator
Assistant Professor, Department of Genetics
Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology
Associate member, O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center
Associate member, Center for Clinical and Translational Science
Email: xuj@uab.edu
Jia received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas-M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Health Sciences Center at Houston. During his Ph.D. he studied molecular mechanisms for a long-standing puzzle of TGF-β switching from tumor suppressor in pre-malignant cells to metastasis promoter in cancer cells with Dr. Dihua Yu. He then pursued his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Ramon Parsons at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, during which he worked on targeting the PI3K/AKT pathway in cancer and investigating the novel function of PTEN-Long. He is now leading a research group to investigate how oncogenic signaling pathways regulate mitosis programs and cancer development.
Selected Honors and Awards
2022-2024 Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama Award
2022 IMPACT Award, School of Medicine Dean’s office, UAB
2019-2021 Leo and Julia Forchheimer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship
2016-2019 The Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Institutional Research Training Grant (T32 Postdoc training grant), NIH
2010-2011 Scientific Excellence Recognition Awards, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
2009-2013 DOD Breast Cancer Predoctoral Fellowship Award
Professional Associations/Affiliations
American Association for Cancer Research 2006-present
American Society for Investigative Pathology 2024-present
Scholarly Activities
Editorial Board, Clinical Breast Cancer 2024-present
Editorial Board, Biological Procedures Online 2024-present