Dr. Xuan Mu received B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Chemistry from the East China University of Science and Technology (Shanghai, China). Before joining the University of Iowa, he worked at the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (Beijing), Peking Union Medical College (Beijing), Tufts University, and Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He received the General Electric (GE) Foundation Scholarship, the Kwan-Cheng Wong postdoctoral fellowship, the Peking Union Medical College Rising Star Award, the Distinguished Abstract Award (the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry), and the Junior Investigator Research Award (BMES ABioM SIG). He has filed four patents and published three book chapters and more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in professional journals, such as PNAS, Nature Communications, Matter, Cell, and Nature Materials.

Dr. Xuan Mu is interested in exploiting cellular, material, and bioengineering approaches to enhance the understanding of respiratory diseases and develop effective treatments and accessible diagnostic tests for the benefit of patients. The cellular approach is primarily based on the vast clinical sources in the Carver School of Medicine and the advanced iPSC techniques; the material approach largely relies on extracellular matrix-derived biomaterials and structural proteins, such as silk fibroin. These proteinaceous materials exhibit the inherent bio-relevance and largely unexploited molecular mechanisms to tune material properties, distinct from most synthetic polymers; the bioengineering ones include 3D printing, microfluidics, and computational simulations. The particular skillset and research experience have placed Dr. Mu in a unique position to pursue the long-term research goal of respiratory and pulmonary bioengineering.