About

Xiaofei Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, specializing in the genetics and breeding of small grains crops. Her research focuses on designing crops that adapt to environmental stresses such as disease pressure, limited water, and changing farming practices. She works with crops including bread wheat, durum wheat, barley, oat, and triticale, utilizing multi-environment field trials, genetics and genomics, and high-throughput phenotyping to improve small grains. Her goals include developing varieties that produce reliable yields and high quality under environmental stress, while meeting the needs of farmers, processors, and consumers. Her research encompasses improving grain quality and human health by studying the genetic control of grain composition, moving useful genetics into the field more efficiently through genomic selection and speed breeding, and developing stable disease resistance across genetic backgrounds, particularly focusing on stripe rust. She also works on yield stability under low-input and stress conditions by developing novel semidwarfing genes and reintroducing useful diversity from landraces to enhance stress tolerance and yield stability. Xiaofei Zhang holds a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and a B.S. in Agronomy from Shenyang Agricultural University.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Neuroscience
• Cell biology
• Biophysics
• Electronic engineering
• Engineering
• Optics
• Anatomy
• Physics
• Endocrinology
• Nanotechnology
• Materials science

Selected publications

• NODAL inhibition promotes differentiation of pacemaker-like cardiomyocytes from human induced pluripotent stem cells

  Stem Cell Research · 2020 · 37 citations

  • Biology
  • Cell biology
  • Anatomy

  Directed cardiomyogenesis from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) has been greatly improved in the last decade but directed differentiation to pacemaking cardiomyocytes (CMs) remains incompletely understood. In this study, we demonstrated that inhibition of NODAL signaling by a specific NODAL inhibitor (SB431542) in the cardiac mesoderm differentiation stage downregulated PITX2c, a transcription factor that is known to inhibit the formation of the sinoatrial node in the left atrium during cardiac development. The resulting hiPSC-CMs were smaller in cell size, expressed higher pro-pacemaking transcription factors, TBX3 and TBX18, and exhibited pacemaking-like electrophysiological characteristics compared to control hiPSC-CMs differentiated from established Wnt-based protocol. The pacemaker-like subtype increased up to 2.4-fold in hiPSC-CMs differentiated with the addition of SB431542 relative to the control. Hence, Nodal inhibition in the cardiac mesoderm stage promoted pacemaker-like CM differentiation from hiPSCs. Improving the yield of human pacemaker-like CMs is a critical first step in the development of functional human cell-based biopacemakers.

  DOI

• Cooperativity of K _v 7.4 channels confers ultrafast electromechanical sensitivity and emergent properties in cochlear outer hair cells

  Science Advances · 2020 · 35 citations

  • Biophysics
  • Physics
  • Materials science

  7.4 gating provides OHCs with a feedback mechanism that enables the cochlea to overcome viscous drag and resolve sounds at auditory frequencies.

  DOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R56HL138392

  NIH · $393k · 2021

• NIH Grant P51RR000165

  NIH · $43.4M · 2016

Frequent coauthors

• Nipavan Chiamvimonvat

  University of California, Davis

  76 shared

• Luigi Di Biase

  Montefiore Medical Center

  50 shared

• Phung N. Thai

  University of California, Davis

  36 shared

• Andrea Natale

  St David's Medical Center

  33 shared

• Valeriy Timofeyev

  University of California, Davis

  32 shared

• Lu Ren

  Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University

  31 shared

• Ebenezer N. Yamoah

  University of Nevada, Reno

  30 shared

• Domenico G. Della Rocca

  St David's Medical Center

  26 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology Chinese Academy of Sciences

  2010

• BS, Agronomy

  Shenyang Agricultural University

  2004

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