Bo Xu, MD, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr. Bo Xu received his medical degree from Norman Bethune University of Medical Sciences in 1990, a Masters degree from Tianjin Medical University in 1995 and a Doctoral degree from Peking Union Medical College in 1998. He conducted his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Michael B. Kastan at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. In August 2002, he joined LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans as Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics and a member of the Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center. In May 2006, he joined Southern Research as the leader of the Laboratory of Molecular Radiobiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He also serves as an adjunct faculty in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at The University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Research Interests

Dr. Xu’s research team focuses on studying mechanisms that control cellular response to DNA damage agents. These regulatory events are central to two of the major issues in the field of cancer biology: 1) how and when do cancers start and progress, and 2) what determines the sensitivity of tumors to therapeutic interventions. In terms of cancer causation, the critical role for DNA damage responses is demonstrated by the fact that a number of human cancer susceptibility syndromes are caused by inherited mutations affecting proteins involved in DNA damage responses. For example, inherited mutations in damage-response genes can lead to skin cancers (Xeroderma pigmentosum genes), leukemia and lymphoma (ATM, NBS1 and Fanconi Anemia genes), breast and ovarian cancers (p53, BRCA1, BRCA2), colon cancers (mismatch repair genes), and brain tumors (p53). The epidemiological observation that exposure to environmental DNA damaging agents contributes to at least 80% of all human cancers further illustrates the importance of these damage responses in cancer causation. Since many cancer therapeutic interventions attempt to kill tumors by targeting the DNA, gene products involved in DNA damage response pathways are also predictably critical for determining therapeutic outcomes. Thus, elucidation of the mechanisms involved in DNA damage response pathways has obvious importance both for understanding cancer causation and for eliciting cancer cures.