News

2024

2024-09: Bo was selected among the new cohort of MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 (Pioneers) of the Asia-Pacific region. Congratulations to Bo and all the Innovators!

2024-08: Our paper investigating the world's first pig kidney xenotransplantation in human decedents (Cellular dynamics in pig-to-human kidney xenotransplantation) is featured as the cover story by Med, Cell Press in its August issue! Also a Viewpoint commentary piece. What a fun surprise!

2024-06: Farewell to the brilliant Fifi and Bingham to move on to their graduate school studies. Wish them all the best in their new adventures!

2024-06: Warm welcome to Amulya Garimella from Harvard Computer Science joining our group to study transcriptional regulation in the mammalian system!

2024-05: What could be better to celebrate the publication of papers with an outdoor lab lunch, Charles River kayaking, ice cream, and playing frisbee on a sunny Friday afternoon! Find out more on the Lab Fun page.

2024-05: Two new papers online and congratulations to Fifi and Bingham!! Our study using single-cell and time-resolved transcriptomics to investigate the world's first pig kidney xenotransplantation in human decedents (Cellular dynamics in pig-to-human kidney xenotransplantation) is published online in Med, Cell Press's flagship medical journal. Meanwhile, our collaborative study on pig heart xenotransplantation trials is online in Nature Medicine: 'Integrative multi-omics profiling in human decedents receiving pig heart xenografts'.

2024-03: Bo is featured on the Night Science podcast to talk about the back stories and the creative process in research. Listen to the podcast here: Bo Xia and a tale of tails

2024-02: Our work, 'On the genetic basis of tail loss evolution in humans and apes‘, is online in Nature and featured an impressive cover. Also, the work comes with a thoughtful Nature News & Views: A mobile DNA sequence could explain tail loss in humans and apes, many public media coverages such as CNN, Reuters, Scientific American, Nature, etc. Check out some representatives below:

How Humans Lost Their TailsA newly discovered genetic mechanism helped eliminate the tails of human ancestors

A mobile DNA sequence could explain tail loss in humans and apesAn alternatively spliced gene contributed to tail loss in early apes.

Why don’t humans have tails? Scientists find answers in an unlikely place | CNNHumans’ closest primate relatives lost their tails about 25 million years ago, but exactly how has remained a mystery. A breakthrough in genetic research may finally offer answers.

Why don’t humans have tails? A genetic parasite may have stolen themAround 25 million years ago, a stretch of DNA inserted itself into an ancestral ape’s genome, an event that might have taken our tails away.

Our ancient animal ancestors had tails. Why don't we?Scientists have identified a gene mutation that may explain why we don't have tails. Our very ancient animal ancestors had tails.

People with tails? No, because of this ancient genetic mutationDirector James Cameron's "Avatar" movies are populated by a species of outsized blue beings resembling humans, except with tails. So why does our species lack a tail, considering that our evolutionary forerunners in the primate lineage had them?

Change in Genetic Code May Explain How Human Ancestors Lost TailsNYU Langone researchers found a genetic change in human ancestors that partly explains why they don’t have tails like monkeys. Learn more.

How humans lost their tails — and why the discovery took 2.5 years to publishAn elegant run of experiments in mice reveals the genetic changes that led humanity’s ape ancestors to lose the appendage.

2024-02: We are proud to learn that Bingham Zheng and Fifi Pan - the first two applicants from our lab - both got accepted to some top Ph.D. programs across the country! Congratulations to both of them!!

2024-02: Two papers got accepted in principle - a good start to the new year! Stay tuned!

2023

2023-12: Welcome Dr. Xinyu Ling, a Jane Coffin Childs Fund Fellow, joining our lab as a postdoc fellow. Moreover, our lab finished the wonderful year with a fun lab meeting filled with interesting science and games&gifts, and a lab dinner of celebration and appreciation! Check out more from the Lab Fun page. Looking forward to more good news to come in 2024!

2023-11: Welcome Farhan Khodaee, a graduate student of MIT EECS, joining our lab as a visiting graduate student.

2023-11: Our manuscript on tail-loss genetics in humans and apes is accepted in Nature. Stay tuned!

2023-10: We conquered Monadnock!! A wonderful lab hiking at the Monadnock mountain during the New England foliage season. Check out the Lab Fun page for pictures. For those who don't know, Monadnock is also the conference room name at Broad Institute where we have weekly seminars.

2023-09: Our lab is awarded another grant from the Common Fund of NIH Office of the Director. More exciting science to come soon!

2023-08: We are pleased to further support the underrepresented scientists in computational biology for their training and career development. Thanks to the NIH support!

2023-06: Our team has grown a lot recently! Welcome Dr. Qingji Lyu, our first postdoc scholar, Parmida Davarmanesh, our first graduate student from MIT EECS, and Fifi Pan, an undergraduate student from USC! Welcome to the Xia lab! More excitingly, we started weekly group meetings!!

2023-03: Excited to be among the first cohort of the GREGoR Research Grant awardees. We thank the GREGoR Consortium for supporting our work. Check out the news from the GREGoR Consortium.

2023-01: Our manuscript on predicting cell type-specific genome organization and high-throughput in silico genetic screen with C.Origami, is now online at Nature Biotechnology. Congrats to the team!

2022

2022-10: The Xia lab is excited and grateful to receive the 2022 NIH Director's Early Independence Award (DP5)! More exciting science to come!

NIH to award over $200 million to support potentially transformative biomedical research projectsThe 2022 NIH Director’s Awards enable exceptionally creative scientists to push the boundaries of biomedical science.

Harvard Researchers Receive NIH Funding for Biomedical, Behavioral, and Social Sciences Research | News | The Harvard CrimsonNine Harvard researchers are set to receive a total of more than $200 million in grants over the next five years through a National Institutes of Health program that funds “high-risk, high-reward” research.

Nine Harvard scientists win NIH grants — Harvard GazetteNine scientists from Harvard are among the 103 who have been selected in four categories to receive more than $200 million in grants over five years

2022-09: Our manuscript on predicting cell type-specific genome organization through a novel multi-modal deep neural network, C.Origami, is accepted at Nature Biotechnology. C.Origami predicts cell type-specific genome organization and enables high-throughput in silico genetic screening for biological discoveries.

2022-09: We are grateful to receive Arima Genomics 2022 Disease Research Grant to support our research into genome organization.

2022-06: Bo Xia is selected as a Junoir Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. Read more about the current Fellows at the Society of Fellows.

2022-03: Bo Xia won the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award. The Weintraub Award is considered as one of the highest awards recognizing outstanding achievement in graduate studies in biological sciences around the world. Read the press coverage.

Before 2022

2021-09: Our work, 'genetic basis of tail-loss evolution in humans and apes', is reported by multiple major media, with some representative reports below:

New York Times, How Humans Lost Their Tails, by Carl Zimmer

Science, ‘Jumping gene’ may have erased tails in humans and other apes, by Gretchen Vogel

How Humans Lost Their Tails (Published 2021)A new study suggests that a single genetic mutation helps explain why monkeys have tails, while apes and people do not.

Why Humans Don't Have TailsScientists pinpointed a gene that could explain why monkeys have the extra appendage, while people don’t

‘Jumping gene’ may have erased tails in humans and other apes—and boosted our risk of birth defectsAdding mobile DNA sequence to developmental gene short-circuits tail development in mice

How did humans lose their tails? Scientists discover what happened.A pivotal mutation.

How our ape ancestors suddenly lost their tails 25 million years agoWhy don't humans have tails? A comparison of the genomes of apes and monkeys has revealed the mutation that caused the ancestors of apes to lose these appendages, a change that did not happen gradually but all at once

Alu Leap May Explain Why Apes Don’t Have TailsA transposable element that jumped into the TBXT gene, which is linked to tail morphology, appears to be to blame for our missing appendage.

基因揭秘人类如何“甩掉”了尾巴 - BBC News 中文尾巴，是绝大多数脊椎动物都有的一个标准配件，人类原本也有。究竟是什么导致了人类如今有尾骨却没有尾巴呢？

2021-01: 10X Genomics made Bo's Lego Transcriptomics into a gift box.

2020-11: My recent piece on how I turned ideas into projects: "How to turn a Eureka moment into a research project: from ‘napkin idea’ to published paper".

How to turn a Eureka moment into a research projectFrom ‘napkin idea’ to published paper.

2020-06: Bo Xia won the highly prestigious Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation. The Regeneron Prize awards one graduate student and one postdoctoral fellow across the leading universities in the U.S. each year to recognize and honor excellence in biomedical science. Read the press release:

Regeneron Announces the 2020 Winners of the Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation/PRNewswire/ -- Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN) today announced the winners of the eighth annual Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation, which...

2020-05: Check out below how Lego helps to explain transcriptomics: bulk RNA-seq, single-cell RNA-seq, and spatial transcriptomics.

Bulk RNA-seq

Single-cell RNA-seq

Spatial Transcriptome

3D organ

2020-01: Our work, 'Widespread Transcriptional Scanning in the Testis Modulates Gene Evolution Rates‘, is online in Cell, and is reported by multiple media:

EurekaAlert!, ScienceDaily, Yahoo! News, Phys.org, News Medical Life Sciences,

Also the Preview: Sperm Go to (Transcription) Extremes

Sperm Go to (Transcription) ExtremesXia and colleagues show that heritable mutations are kept in check in the male germline partly by “transcriptional scanning,” wherein the majority of …

Scanning system in sperm may control rate of human evolutionMaturing sperm cells turn on most of their genes, not to follow their genetic instructions like normal, but instead to repair DNA before passing it to the next generation, a new study finds.