LSI's Shawn Xu Named One of Twenty of America's Most Promising Scholars, Named To Highly Selective Pew Scholars Program
Xian-Zhong Shawn Xu, Life Sciences Institute Research Assistant Professor and Assistant Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Michigan Medical School, was named U-M’s only Pew Scholar on June 19, 2007.
The Pew Charitable Trusts and the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) announced that Xu and 19 additional exceptional researchers had been selected as 2007 Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences. The Pew program invests in early to mid-career scientists, seeks to expand foundation of biomedical knowledge & advance scientific frontiers. As a Pew Scholar, each scientist will receive a $240,000 award over four years to help support his or her research, as well as gain inclusion into a unique community of scientists that encourages collaboration and exchange of ideas.
"Shawn is an exceptional scientist. He was ranked among the very top individuals of his status at Johns Hopkins, Cal Tech and UCSF and has brought a new dimension to Michigan. He has clearly emerged as a future star, learning to take risks and follow leads to answer questions of fundamental significance. He is creative, rigorous and highly focused young scientist who applies creative approaches to his work," said Alan Saltiel, LSI director.
Xu studies neuronal signaling, behavior and drug addiction in the genetic model organism C. elegans. In particular, he is interested in understanding how ion channels, membrane receptors and calcium signaling molecules regulate neural activity and plasticity. To do so, he takes a multidisciplinary approach involving molecular genetics, cell biology, functional imaging, neurophysiology and genomics.
Research in his group has revealed that individual TRP channels, an emerging superfamily of poorly understood channels that are conserved from worms to humans, regulate a variety of biological processes including drug addiction and sensory perception. He showed that the worms could be used to model nicotine addiction and proprioception.
Shawn Xu also received a Harold Weintraub Graduate Student Award and a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellowship among many other honors.
The Pew Scholars selection process is rigorously competitive, as all applicants are highly talented researchers in their fields. Applicants must be nominated by an invited institution and must demonstrate excellence and innovation in their research. The scholars are selected by a distinguished national advisory committee, chaired by Dr. Torsten N. Wiesel, president emeritus of Rockefeller University and a 1981 Nobel laureate. The program is funded by Pew through a grant to UCSF and totals nearly $5 million for this class of scholars.
For the full list of 2007 Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences: www.pewtrusts.org.
