Jiahua Xie

Dr. Jiahua (Jay) Xie is a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and a principal investigator at BRITE, with 50% teaching and 50% research responsibilities. Prior to joining NCCU, Dr. Xie was a senior scientist at the Vector Tobacco Research Inc. (NC) for five years. Dr. Xie was one of the key scientists who investigated the tobacco alkaloid metabolism and developed the first nicotine-free transgenic tobacco plant in the world.

Since joining the faculty of NCCU in February 2006, he has been enthusiastic about both teaching and research. Dr. Xie has been energetic in securing extramural funding to maintain active research and publish research papers. He has been a PI on seven research grants funded by the NC Biotechnology Center, UNC system, USDA, NSF and NIH. He has established a good relationship with mentors and collaborators from several research universities and produced 34 peer-reviewed publications, with four additional manuscripts under review/submission since joining NCCU.

Dr. Xie’s long-term research goals are (1) to utilize plant biotechnology and molecular techniques to efficiently produce natural products and pharmaceutical proteins of biomedical importance, (2) to study the functions of these plant-produced natural products and recombinant proteins in vitro and in vivo, and (3) to provide a good training platform for under-represented students to perform hypothesis-driven biotechnological and biomedical research.

Glycoengineering of plants to produce a tissue-protective asialo-rhuEPO (EPO without sialic acids) is one of his research interests. Recently, his group has extended their research to study cell/tissue protective effects of plant-produced asialo-rhuEPO and its mechanisms of action in cell and animal models as well as to evaluate its pharmacological characteristics.

Dr. Xie earned a PhD degree in Biophysics in 1996 from Zhejiang University (former Zhejiang Agricultural University), Hangzhou, China, and a BS degree in Agronomy in 1986 from the same university.