May 14, 2022: Xiang presents a talk at the 10th Annual Symbiosis Workshop.
May 2022: The Xiang lab welcomes Biology undergraduate student Kes Moore.
May 2, 2022: Our new paper is out at Current Biology! Cnidarian-Symbiodiniaceae symbiosis establishment is independent of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis shapes the symbiotic relationships between cnidarian hosts and Symbiodiniaceae algae. We created Symbiodiniaceae photosynthetic mutants and show that infection, proliferation, and maintenance can proceed without photosynthesis during symbiosis establishment but the ability to do so depends on specific host-symbiont pairs. Great job Casandra and Andrea. This was also a team effort, and thanks to our awesome collaborators Prof. Robert Jinkerson and PhD student Joseph Russo at UCR; Prof. Richard Chi at UNCC; Prof. Mark Martindale at the Whitney Lab for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida; Prof. Arthur Grossman at Carnegie Institution for Science; and Prof. Masayuki Hatta at Ochanomizu University, Japan. Check out news here:
May 2022: Xiang is awarded a Flash Grant from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.
April 2022: Xiang is selected as one of the 2022 Women’s Young Investigator Travel Award Winners to travel to Plant Biology 2022 in Portland, Oregon.
April 2022: Congratulations to our incoming PhD student Tessa Gebert on receiving the Wayland H. Cato Jr. First-Year Doctoral Fellowship. This award is among the most prestigious awards offered to graduate students by UNC Charlotte. Great job Tessa!
April 2022: PhD student Andrea Kirk presents a talk at the Association of Biological Sciences Graduate Students (ABSGS) Research Symposium.
January 2022: The Xiang lab welcomes SPARC4 undergraduate student Melanie Akers.
November 2021: Xiang presents a seminar at the Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia. Thanks for the invitation Brad!
October 2021: Our first Xiang lab photo on a beautiful day outside Woodward!
October 2021: Congratulations to undergraduate student Mahita Sadula being accepted into the Still Scholars Early Acceptance Program. Great job Mahita!
September 2021: Undergraduates Alexandra Tew and Sydney Elmore join the lab. Welcome to the lab!
September 2021: The long term vision for the Plant Cell Atlas is published in eLife: Vision, challenges and opportunities for a Plant Cell Atlas. Check it out!
September 2021: Xiang lab welcomes new rotation student Janki Bhalodi.
July 2021: Xiang was part of the work on the identification of green lineage osmotic stress pathways, which is uploaded to bioRxiv. Congratulations Pep and all!
June 2021: Xiang gave a talk at the Virtual Meeting of Systematics, Biogeography, and Evolution. The SBE meeting 2021 hosts a special symposium from the Bioinformatics Research Center (BRC) of UNC Charlotte.
June 2021: A huge congratulations to our postdoc Casandra Newkirk being awarded the NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology (PRFB). Great job Casandra!
April 2021: The work on 3D genome organization in dinoflagellates with collaborators at Stanford and Carnegie now is published at Nature Genetics! Check it out! See the news in ScienceDaily.
March 2021: Xiang, together with Prof. Christopher Lobban from the University of Guam, gave a talk at the 12th International Phycological Congress.
February 2021: The Xiang lab is a participating member of the ciliates genomics hub in the Aquatic Symbiosis Project, jointly funded by the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
November 2020: Our first year PhD student Andrea Kirk has published in Frontiers in Physiology on transcriptome reprogramming of Symbiodiniaceae Breviolum minutum in response to casein amino acids supplementation together with our collaborators at Carnegie Department of Plant Biology. Congratulations Andrea!
September 2020: Sankalp Vadlapudi joins as a Honors student. Undergraduate student Mahita Sadula joins the lab as well. Welcome to the lab!
August 2020: Andrea Kirk has joined the lab as a graduate student. Welcome to the lab!
July 2020: Our work on 3D genome organization in dinoflagellates with collaborators at Stanford and Carnegie is uploaded to bioRxiv.
May 2020: Xiang is awarded the Faculty Research Grant (FRG) from the office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Development at UNC Charlotte.
May 2020: Xiang joins Plant Cell Atlas Initiative Workshop as a discussion leader. Check out Plant Cell Atlas Initiative.
April 2020: Dr. Casandra Newkirk from the University of Florida joins as postdoc. Welcome to the lab!
February 2020: Xiang presents a seminar at UNC-CH’s Department of Marine Sciences. Thanks for the invitation Karl!
January 2020: Xiang paper on symbiont population control in cnidarian-algal symbiosis is published in Nature Communications. Check it out. See the news in ScienceDaily, UNC news.
September 2019: The Xiang lab welcomes Biology undergraduate student Cheri Arbello.