Xiaojun Tian

Xiaojun Tian

Associate Professor,
School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering
  • [email protected]
  • Phone: 480-727-0023
  • ‌
  • ISTB4-273 Tempe, AZ 85287
  • Mail code: 9709
    Campus: Tempe
  • ‌
Biography Research Teaching Public Work
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Long Bio

Dr. Xiaojun Tian is an Associate Professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering at Arizona State University. His research combines quantitative experiments, synthetic biology, systems biology, and mathematical modeling to uncover design principles of gene regulatory circuits and to engineer programmable cellular behaviors.

His work has been published in leading journals including Cell, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Communications, Nucleic Acids Research, and Trends in Biotechnology. He is the recipient of the NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) and the NSF CAREER Award.

Research Website URL
https://tianlaboratory.com/
Google Scholar URL
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Ev3k7HwAAAAJ&hl=en
Research Interests

 

Systems Biology, Synthetic Biology, Nonlinear Dynamics, Gene Circuits, EMT

 

Research Group

Tian Lab is looking for talented and motivated graduate students. Visit the group webpage here.

Publications

Selected High-Impact Contributions

  1. Zhang, R.r, Yang, W., Zhang, R., Godar, A., Rijal, S., Youssef, A., Nielsen, D.R., Zheng, W., Tian, X.-J.*, Phase Separation to Buffer Growth-Mediated Dilution in Synthetic Circuits. Cell. 188, 7413-7427.e15， 2025.

     

  2. Zhang, R., Zhang, R.r, Tian, X.-J.*, Integrating Recombinase-Based Feedback and Feedforward Control for Optimal Resource Decoupling. Nucleic Acids Research, 53(17), gkaf913,2025.

     

  3. Stone, A.+, Youssef, A., Rijal, S., Zhang, R.r, and Tian, X.-J.*, Context-Dependent Redesign of Robust Synthetic Gene Circuits. Trends in Biotechnology. Trends in Biotechnology. 42, 895-909, 2024. 

     

  4. Stone, A.+, Zhang, R.r, Rijal, S., and Tian, X.-J.*, Enhancing Circuit Stability Under Growth Feedback with Supplementary Repressive Regulation. Nucleic Acids Research, gkad1233, 2024.

     

  5. Zhang, R.r, Goetz, H., Melendez-Alvarez, J., Li, J.∞, Ding, T., Wang, X., and Tian, X.-J.*, Winner-Takes-All Resource Competition Redirects Cascading Cell Fate Transitions. Nature Communications, 12, 853, 2021. 

     

  6. Zhang, R.r,+, Li, J.∞,+, Melendez-Alvarez, J., Chen, X., Sochor, P., Zhang, Q., Goetz, H., Ding, T., Wang, X.*, and Tian, X.-J.*, Topology-Dependent Interference of Synthetic Gene Circuit Function by Growth Feedback, Nature Chemical Biology, 16, 695-701, 2020. 

     

Research Activity

Xiaojun Tian, Multi-Scale Engineering of Heterogeneity in the Host-Aware Synthetic Gene Circuits. NIH (7/1/2021-6/30/2026).

Xiaojun Tian, URoL: Epigenetics 1: Epigenetics Control by Noncoding RNA. NSF (08/01/2019 - 07/31/2022).

Xiaojun Tian, CAREER: Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms Underlying Circuit-Host Interactions. NSF (02/01/2022 - 01/31/2027).

Courses
2026 Summer
Course Number Course Title
BDE 792 Research
BDE 792 Research
BDE 795 Continuing Registration
2026 Spring
Course Number Course Title
BME 331 Transport Phenomena for BME
BDE 799 Dissertation
BDE 792 Research
BDE 795 Continuing Registration
BDE 799 Dissertation
BDE 792 Research
BME 331 Transport Phenomena for BME
2025 Fall
Course Number Course Title
BDE 792 Research
BDE 799 Dissertation
BME 598 Special Topics
BME 331 Transport Phenomena for BME
BME 494 Special Topics
2025 Summer
Course Number Course Title
BDE 792 Research
BDE 792 Research
BDE 795 Continuing Registration
2025 Spring
Course Number Course Title
BDE 799 Dissertation
BDE 792 Research
BDE 795 Continuing Registration
BDE 799 Dissertation
BDE 792 Research
2024 Fall
Course Number Course Title
BME 591 Seminar
BDE 792 Research
ASU 101-BME The ASU Experience
BDE 799 Dissertation
ASU 101-BME The ASU Experience
BME 598 Special Topics
BME 494 Special Topics
2024 Summer
Course Number Course Title
BDE 792 Research
BDE 792 Research
BDE 795 Continuing Registration
2024 Spring
Course Number Course Title
BME 591 Seminar
BME 331 Transport Phenomena for BME
BDE 799 Dissertation
BDE 792 Research
BDE 792 Research
BDE 795 Continuing Registration
BDE 799 Dissertation
BME 331 Transport Phenomena for BME
2023 Fall
Course Number Course Title
BME 591 Seminar
BDE 792 Research
AML 592 Research
BDE 799 Dissertation
BME 598 Special Topics
2023 Summer
Course Number Course Title
BDE 792 Research
BDE 792 Research
2023 Spring
Course Number Course Title
BDE 799 Dissertation
BDE 792 Research
BDE 795 Continuing Registration
BDE 799 Dissertation
2022 Fall
Course Number Course Title
BDE 792 Research
AML 592 Research
BDE 799 Dissertation
BME 598 Special Topics
BDE 792 Research
2022 Summer
Course Number Course Title
BDE 792 Research
BDE 792 Research
2022 Spring
Course Number Course Title
BME 331 Transport Phenomena for BME
BDE 799 Dissertation
BDE 792 Research
BDE 792 Research
BME 331 Transport Phenomena for BME
BDE 795 Continuing Registration
BDE 799 Dissertation
2021 Fall
Course Number Course Title
BDE 792 Research
AML 592 Research
BDE 799 Dissertation
BME 598 Special Topics
BDE 799 Dissertation
2021 Summer
Course Number Course Title
BDE 792 Research
BDE 792 Research
2021 Spring
Course Number Course Title
BME 331 Transport Phenomena for BME
BDE 799 Dissertation
BDE 792 Research
BME 331 Transport Phenomena for BME
Work History

2014~2017      Postdoctoral Associate, University of Pittsburgh, PA, USA

2012~2014      Postdoctoral Associate, Virginia Tech, VA, USA

Service

Editor, Associate Editor for 2 peer-reviewed journals

  1. Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering (MBE) (Associate Editor)
  2. eLife (Guest Editor) (IF= 8.14)

Member of Editorial Board: 5

  1. Frontiers in Microbiology (IF=5.640)
  2. PLOS ONE (IF=3.240)
  3. Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering (MBE) (IF=1.285)
  4. Austin Journal of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics 
  5. Journal of Genetics and Molecular Biology

International/national conference sessions chaired: 2

  1. 2021 American Control Conference, invited session "Control in Synthetic Biology" (May 26-28, 2021)
  2. The 2nd International Conference on Biomedical and Biological Engineering (2017)

International/national conference program committee: 1

  1. The 3rd International Symposium on Mathematical and Computational Oncology (ISMCO'21), October 11-13, 2021

Peer Reviewer for 32 Journals

 

  1. Nature Computational Science
  2. Current Opinion in Microbiology
  3. Nucleic Acids Research
  4. PLOS Computational Biology
  5. BMC Systems Biology
  6. ACS Synthetic Biology
  7. Synthetic Biology
  8. mSystems
  9. npj Systems Biology
  10. Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
  11. Biophysical Journal
  12. Scientific Reports
  13. Journal of the Royal Society Interface
  14. Molecular Therapy-Nucleic Acids
  15. Journal of Molecular Cell Biology
  16. PLoS One
  17. Cancers 
  18. Physica Scripta
  19. Processes
  20. Acta Biotheoretica
  21. Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
  22. BioMed Research International
  23. International Journal of Oncology
  24. Oncology Reports
  25. Oncology Letters
  26. FEBS Letters
  27. Molecular Medicine Reports 
  28. IEEE Transactions on NanoBioscience
  29. Advanced Biosystems
  30. BMES
  31. Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation
  32. frontiers in microbiology

 

Proposal Review Service for 5 Funding Agencies

  1. US Army Research Office, ad hoc Reviewer (2019)
  2. NIH MABS Study Section, ad hoc Reviewer (2020)
  3. NSF RoL, Panel Reviewer (2020)
  4. NSF GRFP Reviewer (2020,2021,2022)
  5. Reviewer for grant competition at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (2020)
Expertise Areas
Biophysics
Cancer
Microbiology
Nonlinear Dynamical Systems
Synthetic Biology
Systems Biology
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