Dr. Pinglong Xu employs multidisciplinary approaches to systematically elucidate the signaling mechanisms, functions, and pathological regulation of nucleic acid sensing, an essential innate immune system with multifaceted functions. He identified the cGAS-STING-PERK pathway and neuron-intrinsic cGAS-STING signaling, which drive lysosomal storage diseases, organ fibrosis, and cellular senescence. His discoveries also include roles of nucleic acid sensing in protein synthesis, neuronal death, phase separation, mitochondrial regulation, and cellular transdifferentiation, alongside the academic theories on how oncogenes, blood glucose levels, and the nutritional microenvironment control them. These systemic studies have been published in prestigious journals, such as Nat Cell Biol (2024, 2022, 2019, 2017) and Mol Cell (2022, 2021, 2020, 2014), Cell Host Microbe (2017), Sci Adv (2024, 2016), Genes Dev (2016), and sponsored by funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China for Innovative Research Groups, National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, key projects, and key R&D programs. Dr. Xu has been honored with the Gu Xiaocheng Lectureship, the Promega Innovation Award in Cell Biology, and the Qiushi Distinguished Professorship at Zhejiang University.

    Dr. Pinglong Xu graduated with a Bachelor in Biochemistry from Sichuan University in 1998 and obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology in 2003. He pursued postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) from 2004 to 2010, under supervision by Dr. Rik Derynck, one of the founders of TGF-β signaling. In 2011, he was appointed as an assistant research professor at UCSF, and he joined Zhejiang University in 2013.Dr. Xu was selected for the National Overseas Talent Plan and appointed as a Distinguished Expert of Zhejiang Province in 2015, received funding from the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars in 2017, and for the Innovative Research Group Project in 2023. Dr. Xu has been honored with the Gu Xiaocheng Lectureship, the Promega Innovation Award in Cell Biology, and the Qiushi Distinguished Professorship at Zhejiang University.