Xufeng Chen, Ph.D.
Department of Hematopoietic Biology & Malignancy, Division of Cancer Medicine
Present Title & Affiliation
Primary Appointment
Assistant Professor, Hematopoietic Biology and Malignancy, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
Dual/Joint/Adjunct Appointment
Assistant Professor, Hematopoietic Biology and Malignancy, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
Education & Training
Degree-Granting Education
| 2015 | Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology (SIBCB), CAS, Shanghai, CN, Cell Biology, Ph.D |
| 2009 | Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, CN, Biotechnology, B.Sc |
| 2009 | Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, CN, Computer Science, B.Sc |
Postgraduate Training
| 2022-2025 | Instructor, NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY |
| 2017-2022 | Post-doctoral fellow, NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY |
| 2015-2017 | Post-doctoral fellow, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai |
Honors & Awards
| 2025 | Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) – RFT Award |
| 2024 | Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer ExCEL Scholar Award |
| 2023 | Medchemexpress North American Citation Award |
| 2023 | American Society of Hematology (ASH) Scholar Award |
| 2022 | Leukemia research foundation (LRF) Hollis Brownstein Research |
| 2016 | Sanofi-SIBS Young Talent Scholarship |
| 2015 | National scholarship for graduate students |
| 2015 | Outstanding graduate in the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences |
| 2014 | Outstanding poster award in the 2014 SIBCB Annual Symposium |
| 2013 | Merit student in the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences |
| 2011 | Merit student in the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences |
| 2011 | Excellent student cadre in the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences |
Professional Memberships
Selected Presentations & Talks
Local Presentations
- 2026. Advancing Therapeutic Intervention to Overcome Treatment Resistance and Potentiate Anti-Cancer Immunity. Invited. SCBA-TX faculty club. Houston, Texas, US.
- 2025. Advancing Therapeutic Intervention to Overcome Treatment Resistance and Potentiate Anti-Cancer Immunity. Invited. Fall Seminar Series. Houston, Texas, US.
- 2025. Advancing Therapeutic Intervention to Overcome Treatment Resistance and Potentiate Anti-Cancer Immunity. Invited. MDS group meeting. Houston, Texas, US.
National Presentations
- 2024. Advancing Therapeutic Intervention to Overcome Treatment Resistance and Potentiate Anti-Cancer Immunity. Invited. New York, NY, US.
- 2023. A membrane-associated MHC-I inhibitory axis for cancer immune evasion. Poster. Southbridge, MA, US.
- 2023. A membrane-associated MHC-I inhibitory axis for cancer immune evasion. Poster. Austin, TX, US.
International Presentations
- 2023. Advancing Therapeutic Intervention to Overcome Treatment Resistance and Potentiate Anti-Cancer Immunity. Invited. Suzhou, CN.
- 2014. Lis1 is required for the expansion of hematopoietic stem cells in the fetal liver. Invited. Copenhagen, DK.
Grant & Contract Support
| Date: | 2025 - 2030 |
| Title: | Decoding the Immune Network Dynamics in Acute Myeloid Leukemia |
| Funding Source: | CPRIT |
| Role: | PI |
| Date: | 2023 - 2026 |
| Title: | ASH Scholar Award |
| Funding Source: | American Society of Hematology |
| Role: | PI |
| Date: | 2022 - 2023 |
| Title: | LRF Hollis Brownstein Research Grant |
| Funding Source: | Leukemia Research Foundation |
| Role: | PI |
Selected Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
- Paraskevopoulou V, Lin Z, Casado-Pelaez M, Grases D, Al-Santli W, Balandran JC, Zhou F, Rashidfarrokhi A, Cross M, Yeung ST, Ntatsoulis K, Patel T, Chen X, Nicolet D, Escobosa M, Porta E, Trowbridge JJ, Khanna KM, Papagiannakopoulos T, Moreira AL, Kanagal-Shamanna R, Loghavi S, Tsirigos A, Eisfeld AK, Esteller M, Aifantis I. Inflammatory immune modulators of AML lung infiltration and respiratory failure. Nat Immunol 27(8):1590-1603, 2026. e-Pub 2026. PMID: 42373987.
- Chen X. Tuning mitochondrial fate to disarm leukemic stem cells. Blood 147(10):1011-1012, 2026. e-Pub 2026. PMID: 41785008.
- Lai, B, Yuan, D, Xu, Z, Zhang, F, Li, M, Martín-Ávila, A, Chen, X, Chen, K, Ouyang, K, Yang, G, Chao, MV, Gan, WB. Astrocytic Ca2+ prevents synaptic depotentiation by limiting repetitive activity in dendrites during motor learning. Nature Neuroscience 28(11):2296-2309, 2025. e-Pub 2025. PMID: 41083843.
- Hockemeyer K, Sakellaropoulos T, Chen X, Ivashkiv O, Sirenko M, Zhou H, Gambi G, Battistello E, Avrampou K, Sun Z, Guillamot M, Chiriboga L, Jour G, Dolgalev I, Corrigan K, Bhatt K, Osman I, Tsirigos A, Kourtis N, Aifantis I. The stress response regulator HSF1 modulates natural killer cell anti-tumour immunity. Nat Cell Biol 26(10):1734-1744, 2024. e-Pub 2024. PMID: 39223375.
- Chen X, Lu Q, Zhou H, Liu J, Nadorp B, Lasry A, Sun Z, Lai B, Rona G, Zhang J, Cammer M, Wang K, Al-Santli W, Ciantra Z, Guo Q, You J, Sengupta D, Boukhris A, Zhang H, Liu C, Cresswell P, Dahia PLM, Pagano M, Aifantis I, Wang J. A membrane-associated MHC-I inhibitory axis for cancer immune evasion. Cell 186(18):3903-3920.e21, 2023. e-Pub 2023. PMID: 37557169.
- Glytsou C, Chen X, Zacharioudakis E, Al-Santli W, Zhou H, Nadorp B, Lee S, Lasry A, Sun Z, Papaioannou D, Cammer M, Wang K, Zal T, Zal MA, Carter BZ, Ishizawa J, Tibes R, Tsirigos A, Andreeff M, Gavathiotis E, Aifantis I. Mitophagy Promotes Resistance to BH3 Mimetics in Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Cancer Discov 13(7):1656-1677, 2023. e-Pub 2023. PMID: 37088914.
- Battistello E, Hixon KA, Comstock DE, Collings CK, Chen X, Rodriguez Hernaez J, Lee S, Cervantes KS, Hinkley MM, Ntatsoulis K, Cesarano A, Hockemeyer K, Haining WN, Witkowski MT, Qi J, Tsirigos A, Perna F, Aifantis I, Kadoch C. Stepwise activities of mSWI/SNF family chromatin remodeling complexes direct T cell activation and exhaustion. Molecular cell 83(8):1216-1236.e12, 2023. e-Pub 2023. PMID: 36944333.
- Lu Q, Liu J, Zhao S, Gomez Castro MF, Laurent-Rolle M, Dong J, Ran X, Damani-Yokota P, Tang H, Karakousi T, Son J, Kaczmarek ME, Zhang Z, Yeung ST, McCune BT, Chen RE, Tang F, Ren X, Chen X, Hsu JCC, Teplova M, Huang B, Deng H, Long Z, Mudianto T, Jin S, Lin P, Du J, Zang R, Su TT, Herrera A, Zhou M, Yan R, Cui J, Zhu J, Zhou Q, Wang T, Ma J, Koralov SB, Zhang Z, Aifantis I, Segal LN, Diamond MS, Khanna KM, Stapleford KA, Cresswell P, Liu Y, Ding S, Xie Q, Wang J. SARS-CoV-2 exacerbates proinflammatory responses in myeloid cells through C-type lectin receptors and Tweety family member 2. Immunity 54(6):1304-1319.e9, 2021. e-Pub 2021. PMID: 34048708.
- Wang E, Zhou H, Nadorp B, Cayanan G, Chen X, Yeaton AH, Nomikou S, Witkowski MT, Narang S, Kloetgen A, Thandapani P, Ravn-Boess N, Tsirigos A, Aifantis I. Surface antigen-guided CRISPR screens identify regulators of myeloid leukemia differentiation. Cell Stem Cell 28(4):718-731.e6, 2021. e-Pub 2021. PMID: 33450187.
- Kloetgen A, Thandapani P, Ntziachristos P, Ghebrechristos Y, Nomikou S, Lazaris C, Chen X, Hu H, Bakogianni S, Wang J, Fu Y, Boccalatte F, Zhong H, Paietta E, Trimarchi T, Zhu Y, Van Vlierberghe P, Inghirami GG, Lionnet T, Aifantis I, Tsirigos A. Three-dimensional chromatin landscapes in T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Nat Genet 52(4):388-400, 2020. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 32203470.
- DiNardo CD, Tiong IS, Quaglieri A, MacRaild S, Loghavi S, Brown FC, Thijssen R, Pomilio G, Ivey A, Salmon JM, Glytsou C, Fleming SA, Zhang Q, Ma H, Patel KP, Kornblau SM, Xu Z, Chua CC, Chen X, Blombery P, Flensburg C, Cummings N, Aifantis I, Kantarjian H, Huang DCS, Roberts AW, Majewski IJ, Konopleva M, Wei AH. Molecular patterns of response and treatment failure after frontline venetoclax combinations in older patients with AML. Blood 135(11):791-803, 2020. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 31932844.
- Chen X, Glytsou C, Zhou H, Narang S, Reyna DE, Lopez A, Sakellaropoulos T, Gong Y, Kloetgen A, Yap YS, Wang E, Gavathiotis E, Tsirigos A, Tibes R, Aifantis I. Targeting Mitochondrial Structure Sensitizes Acute Myeloid Leukemia to Venetoclax Treatment. Cancer Discov 9(7):890-909, 2019. e-Pub 2019. PMID: 31048321.
- Wang E, Lu SX, Pastore A, Chen X, Imig J, Chun-Wei Lee S, Hockemeyer K, Ghebrechristos YE, Yoshimi A, Inoue D, Ki M, Cho H, Bitner L, Kloetgen A, Lin KT, Uehara T, Owa T, Tibes R, Krainer AR, Abdel-Wahab O, Aifantis I. Targeting an RNA-Binding Protein Network in Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Cancer Cell 35(3):369-384.e7, 2019. e-Pub 2019. PMID: 30799057.
- Chen X, Zhao J, Gu C, Cui Y, Dai Y, Song G, Liu H, Shen H, Liu Y, Wang Y, Xing H, Zhu X, Hao P, Guo F, Liu X. Med23 serves as a gatekeeper of the myeloid potential of hematopoietic stem cells. Nat Commun 9(1):3746, 2018. e-Pub 2018. PMID: 30218073.
- Chen X, Aifantis I. The effect of chromatin states on cancer: big data lead the way. Lancet Haematol 5(6):e237-e238, 2018. e-Pub 2018. PMID: 29859610.
- Chen J, Cai Z, Zhang L, Yin Y, Chen X, Chen C, Zhang Y, Zhai S, Long X, Liu X, Wang X. Lis1 Regulates Germinal Center B Cell Antigen Acquisition and Affinity Maturation. J Immunol 198(11):4304-4311, 2017. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 28446568.
- Zhao J, Chen X, Song G, Zhang J, Liu H, Liu X. Uhrf1 controls the self-renewal versus differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells by epigenetically regulating the cell-division modes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 114(2):E142-E151, 2017. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 27956603.
- Cui Y, Chen X, Zhang J, Sun X, Liu H, Bai L, Xu C, Liu X. Uhrf1 Controls iNKT Cell Survival and Differentiation through the Akt-mTOR Axis. Cell Rep 15(2):256-63, 2016. e-Pub 2016. PMID: 27050515.
- Sun Y, Zhu X, Chen X, Liu H, Xu Y, Chu Y, Wang G, Liu X. The mediator subunit Med23 contributes to controlling T-cell activation and prevents autoimmunity. Nat Commun 5:5225, 2014. e-Pub 2014. PMID: 25301163.
- Chen X, Zhang J, Zhao J, Liu H, Sun X, Zhao M, Liu X. Lis1 is required for the expansion of hematopoietic stem cells in the fetal liver. Cell Res 24(8):1013-6, 2014. e-Pub 2014. PMID: 24853954.
- Cao Y, Li H, Sun Y, Chen X, Liu H, Gao X, Liu X. Interferon regulatory factor 4 regulates thymocyte differentiation by repressing Runx3 expression. Eur J Immunol 40(11):3198-209, 2010. e-Pub 2010. PMID: 21061442.
Review Articles
- Wang J, Lu Q, Chen X, Aifantis I. Targeting MHC-I inhibitory pathways for cancer immunotherapy. Trends Immunol 45(3):177-187, 2024. e-Pub 2024. PMID: 38433029.
Patient Reviews
CV information above last modified July 31, 2026