New Appointment: MBP Welcomes Dr. Stephanie Xie
MBP is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Stephanie Xie, Assistant Professor, to the Department of Medical Biophysics.
Dr. Stephanie Xie is an Allan Slaight Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in the University Health Network and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. Dr. Xie completed her Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and went on to postdoctoral fellowships at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. Her work provides fundamental insights into basic cell processes in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) including metabolic and cell cycle regulation. She has made novel discoveries regarding the role of lipid metabolism in human HSCs and leukemia stem cells (LSCs). Dr. Xie found that sphingolipids are distinct across the human blood hierarchy and inhibiting sphingolipid metabolism preserves HSC self-renewal during ex vivo expansion, with significant translational implications for regenerative medicine. Mechanistically, modulating sphingolipids activates pro-survival proteostatic quality control pathways. She further discovered that modulating sphingolipid signaling was a novel leukemia therapy axis to target LSCs by potentiating inflammatory pathways and promoting LSC differentiation in acute myeloid leukemia. Dr. Xie has also been investigating how inflammation ages human HSCs and recently identified a human HSC subset with inflammatory memory that is reflective of a lifetime of inflammatory insults. The Xie lab is focused on interrogating the mechanistic underpinnings of inflammatory and metabolic stress regulation in human HSCs and LSCs. By understanding how stress promotes unhealthy aging and cancer risk, the goal is to discover novel cancer prevention strategies. She has been recognized for her work by the American Association of Cancer Research as a 2025 NextGen Star and is serving on the American Society of Hematology Scientific Committee on Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine.
Please join us in welcoming Dr. Xie to the Department.