People

Xuhang is an incoming Principal Investigator at the School of Life Sciences, Peking University, and a member of the Center for Life Sciences. Xuhang began his training in 2013 at Fudan University in the laboratory of Dr. Jinbiao Ma, studying the structural biology and biochemistry of bacterial Argonaute proteins, where he had great fun with protein purification and gels. In 2017, he joined the lab of Dr. Marian Walhout (co-mentored by Dr. Safak Yilmaz) in the Department of Systems Biology at UMass Chan Medical School, where he combined high-throughput genomics and metabolic network modeling to uncover fundamental and systems-level principles in metabolism. 

Xuhang’s PhD journey was relatively “special,” which he considers in two phases: a “student phase,” during which he trained in computational biology, and a “postdoc phase,” where he teamed up with his long-term collaborator, Dr. Hefei Zhang (then a postdoc in the lab), to initiate an ambitious and somewhat independent project — perturbing every metabolic gene in C. elegans followed by transcriptome profiling. By integrating his expertise in metabolic modeling with the massive genomic dataset, Xuhang uncovered systems-level principles underlying both metabolic wiring (how metabolism functions under normal conditions) and metabolic rewiring (how metabolic homeostasis is maintained under perturbations). This work pioneered a new paradigm for metabolic research – using genomics rather than traditional biochemistry – and enabled the first systems-level characterization of metabolism flux distribution and its regulation.

As a result of this unconventional journey, Xuhang chose to start his own lab immediately after completing his PhD. Xuhang believes that being a very “junior” PI comes with unique advantages – allowing him to be colleagues and peers with his trainees as they build a vibrant, supportive, and science-driven lab together. With his lab at PKU, Xuhang continues to combine experimental and computational approaches, including new technologies such as single-cell sequencing and artificial intelligence, to tackle fundamental questions in metabolism at the systems level. Xuhang is also fortunate to open his lab alongside his longtime friend and undergrad classmate, Dr. Pu Zhang, an outstanding C. elegans geneticist and cell biologist, who joins as the lab’s first postdoc and co-founder. Pu will build the wet lab together with Xuhang and synergize their expertise across genetics, genomics, metabolism, cell biology, and computational biology.