Fengzhu Xiong

Biography

Fengzhu Xiong PhD
Wellcome Sir Henry Dale Fellow, Wellcome-Beit Prize Fellow, Member of the University Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience

Fengzhu earned his BS degree at Tsinghua University and his PhD degree at Harvard University. His PhD dissertation work with Prof Sean Megason focused on imaging and modelling of cell dynamics to understand pattern formation and morphogenesis during development.

He developed live imaging and single cell tracking in zebrafish embryonic neural tube, which led to the discovery of a novel cell sorting process that promotes the boundaries between neural progenitor domains (Xiong et al., 2013). In parallel, he developed a theory study of the interplay between cell shapes and divisions in the embryonic surface epithelium. Using a geometry model, this study explained how an epithelial morphology can robustly emerge from a mechanically coupled group of cells that only follow simple local rules, thus bridging the cell and tissue levels (Xiong et al., 2014).

Fengzhu then conducted his postdoctoral training with Profs Olivier Pourquié and L. Mahadevan at Harvard, shifting focus to tissue mechanics. He found that, in the forming body axis, the axial organs including (notochord, neural tube) are compressed by the flanking paraxial mesoderm. They in turn push cells in the caudal progenitor domain into the paraxial mesoderm, sustaining the latter’s growth. These coupled mechanical interactions form a positive feedback loop analogous to an internal combustion engine (Xiong et al., 2020).

Fengzhu’s research group at the Gurdon Institute now develop novel physical tools and models to uncover basic principles of morphogenesis, using the early avian embryo as a model system.