Title: Skin Mechanobiology – Regeneration and More
Session: Future Leaders Symposium
Date: Wednesday 10 May 2023
Time: 12:00 – 14:30 JPN
Dr. Yingchao Xue is a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Luis Garza’s lab at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Dermatology (http://www.lgarzalab.com/). She studies how skin mechanobiology promotes regeneration and beyond. Dr. Xue developed a mouse model of controlled tissue expansion, where the skin grows under constant stretch from a surgically inserted tissue expander enlarged by saline injection. Using this model, she identified the cell of origin of new skin during stretch-induced skin regeneration for the first time, dissected the pathways that govern the skin size dynamics, and uncovered a set of molecular targets and pathways underlying skin growth. This work has been published in Science Advances -2022. Her work on skin mechanobiology has been awarded several highly prestigious and competitive awards across the entire SOM at Hopkins. The first was a 2022 Young Investigators’ Day Prize with the most sought-after Claude & Barbara Migeon Award. Another was a 2022 Postdoctoral Research Accelerator Award (PRAA), one of only 11 awardees across the whole SOM. Dr. Xue’s work has put Dermatology in the limelight in Hopkins Medicine. Dr. Xue is committed to researching stem cell biology to promote skin regeneration in conditions such as wounding or inspire novel therapies for inflammatory skin diseases.
