Xiaoliang Sunney Xie is the Lee Shau-kee Professor and Dean of Faculty of Sciences at Peking University. He received his B.Sc. in Chemistry from Peking University in 1984, and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from University of California at San Diego in 1990. He became the first tenured professor in 1998 and the first endowed Professor in 2009 at Harvard University among Chinese scholars since China’s reform and opening up. He relocated to Peking University in 2018.
Xie has been a pioneer of single-molecule biophysical chemistry, coherent Raman scattering microscopy and single-cell genomics. The single-cell whole genome amplification methods that his group invented has to date benefited thousands of families with monogenic diseases by successfully preventing the passing of disease-causing mutations to their offspring. In fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic, Xie’s team has identified broad-spectrum neutralizing antibodies against all SARS-CoV-2 variants, which have been licensed to Sinovac.
Xie received numerous international awards, most notably Albany Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry of American Chemical Society and Founders Award of Biophysical Society.
