Principal Investigator

Dr. Xinshu (Grace) Xiao
Professor, Integrative Biology and Physiology
Maria R. Ross Chair
Director, Bioinformatics Interdepartmental Program
Dr. Xinshu (Grace) Xiao received her B.S. degree at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. She then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for graduate studies, earning the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 2000 and 2004, respectively. During this period, she worked on mathematical modeling and systems identification with Dr. Roger D. Kamm and Dr. Richard J. Cohen, respectively, at MIT. After receiving her Ph.D degree in the Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), a joint program by MIT and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Xiao joined the laboratory of Dr. Chris B. Burge in the Department of Biology at MIT for postdoctoral training, where she carried out bioinformatic,genomic and experimental studies of alternative splicing.
In 2008, Dr. Xiao joined the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is now the Maria R. Ross Endowed Professor of the Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology. She also serves as the Director of the Bioinformatics Interdepartmental Program. In addition to her primary appointment in the Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, Dr. Xiao is affiliated with the Institute for Quantitative and Computational Biology, the Molecular Biology Institute, and the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. She is a training faculty with several Ph.D. programs, including the Bioinformatics IDP, Molecular Biology IDP, Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology IDP, and the Bioengineering Ph.D. program. She is also a participating faculty in the Computational and Systems Biology undergraduate program.
Scientists and Postdoctoral Scholars

Dr. Jae Hoon Bahn
Associate Project Scientist
Jae is an Associate Project Scientist in the Xiao lab. He received his Ph.D. in comparative experimental medicine from the University of Tennessee and joined the Xiao lab in 2011. Jae is working on diverse molecular and biochemical experiments for RNA biology in the lab. He likes cooking, watching Netflix, swimming, and playing piano.

Dr. Ting Fu
Postdoc
Ting is a postdoctoral fellow in the Xiao lab. She earned her PhD in MCIP at UCLA in 2022. She developed a new MPRA system, namely MapUTR, to uncover functional variants in the 3′ UTR. Ting also studies the functions of RNA editing in basic biological systems and disease models.

Dr. Giovanni Quinones-Valdez
Postdoc
Giovanni is a postdoctoral fellow in the Xiao lab. He earned his PhD in Bioengineering at UCLA in 2022. His research mainly focuses on the study of RNA variants, including RNA editing and genetic variants. He studies the function and regulation of such variants by developing novel bioinformatics methods and algorithms and apply them to large-scale data analysis.
Graduate Students

Kofi Amoah
PhD student, Bioinformatics IDP

Christina Burghard
PhD student, joint with Sri Kosuri, Bioinformatics IDP

Jack Dodson
PhD student, joint with Paul Boutros, Bioinformatics IDP

Carlos Gonzalez-Figueroa
PhD student, Biochemistry, Molecular and Structural Biology

Jonatan Hervoso
PhD student, joint with Bogdan Pasanuic, Bioinformatics IDP

Elaine Huang
PhD student, Bioinformatics IDP

Juliana Shin
Rotation student, Genetics & Genomics

Sari Terrazas
PhD student, Molecular Biology IDP

Ryo Yamamoto
PhD student, joint with Noah Zaitlen, Bioinformatics IDP
Lab Assistants and Undergraduate Students

Ryan Barney
Undergraduate student, Computational and Systems Biology IDP

Alison King
Undergraduate student, Computational and Systems Biology IDP

Melinda Luo
Undergraduate student, Computational and Systems Biology IDP

Tadeo Spencer
Undergraduate student, Computational and Systems Biology IDP

Bella Wachter
Undergraduate student