Biography

Ying Xu received her Bachelor's degree from Shanghai Medical University, her MD from Saitama Medical School in Japan, and her PhD from the University of Tokyo. She undertook postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco. From 2006 to 2014, she worked at the Model Animal Research Centre at Nanjing University. In 2014, she founded the Cam-Su Genomic Resource Center at Soochow University. She is an honorary member of the Chinese Society for Cell Biology and served as President of the Biological Rhythm Branch from 2015 to 2023. She is currently Vice President of both the Chinese Sleep Research Society and the Asian Sleep Research Association. She has received the Distinguished Young Scholar Award from the National Science Foundation, the Royal Society Newton Advanced Fellowship and the American Society of Biorhythms Pioneer Award. She has led several National Key R&D Programmes and key projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Research Interests

Circadian clocks are endogenous, 24-hour oscillatory systems that regulate biochemical, physiological and behavioural processes in organisms. My laboratory investigates the molecular, cellular and genetic mechanisms that govern circadian rhythms in both central (i.e. brain) and peripheral tissues. We take an evolutionary and behavioural approach to analyze how these mechanisms have been conserved and diverged over time. We also explore how disturbances to daily routines (e.g. shift work, jet lag, irregular feeding) or the circadian pacemaker can disrupt circadian homeostasis, thereby altering metabolic pathways, hormone secretion profiles and behavioural outputs. This has implications for the development of metabolic, endocrine and neuropsychiatric disorders.

Selected Publications

1. Yizhun Zeng…Antonio Vidal-Puig*, Ying Xu*. The suprachiasmatic nucleus regulates brown fat thermogenesis in male mice through an adrenergic receptor ADRB3-S100B signaling pathway. PLoS Biology, 2025

2. Yafei Shen…Ying Xu*, Ling Yang*. ODBAE: a high-performance model identifying complex phenotypes in high-dimensional biological datasets. Communications Biology, 2025

3. Yao Wang…Ying Xu*, Ling Yang*. A Critical Signal for Phenotype Transition Driven by Negative Feedback Loops. iScience, 2024

4. Liujia Qian…Ying Xu*, Tiannan Guo*. Multi-tissue circadian proteome atlas of wild-type and Per1^-/-/Per2^-/- mice. Mol Cell Proteomics, 2023

5. Kai Huang…Ying Xu*. Multigenerational mistimed feeding drives circadian reprogramming with an impaired unfolded protein response. Front Endocrinol, 2023

6. Kai-li Hao…Ying Xu*, Shi-jun Hu*. Disturbance of suprachiasmatic nucleus function improves cardiac repair after myocardial infarction by IGF2-mediated macrophage transition. Acta Pharmacologica Sinica, 2023

7. Qiaocheng Zhai…Ying Xu*. Time-restricted feeding entrains long-term behavioral changes through the IGF2-KCC2 pathway. iScience, 2022

8. Yang An…Ying Xu*, Yi Liu* Decoupling PER phosphorylation, stability and rhythmic expression from mammalian circadian clock function. Nature Communications, 2022

9. Chao Li…Ying Xu* Human-specific gene CT47 blocks PRMT5 degradation to lead to meiosis arrest. Cell Death Discov, 2022

10. Zhihui Zhang…Ying Xu*. Impaired function of the suprachiasmatic nucleus rescues the loss of body temperature homeostasis caused by time-restricted feeding. Science Bull, 2020.

11. Tao Zhang…Ying Xu*. High-throughput discovery of genetic determinants of circadian misalignment, PLoS Genetics, 2020

12. Y Xu*…Y.-H. Fu*, L. J. Ptacek*. Modeling of a human circadian mutation yields novel insights into clock regulation by PER2. Cell, 2007

13. Y Xu*…Louis J Ptacek*, Ying-Hui Fu* Functional Consequences of A CK1d Mutation Causing Familial Advance Sleep Phase Syndrome. Nature, 2005

14. Y Xu*…N. Hirokawa*. KIFC3 and cholesterol determine the integrity and position of Golgi apparatus. Journal of Cell Biology, 2002

Current Post-Graduate students’ Mentorship:

Yiling TANG, Hao XU, Tao ZHOU, Yizhun ZENG, Zhen ZHU, Le CHANG, Qi CHEN