Professor Yiji Xia obtained his PhD in Genetics in 1997 from Iowa State University. He was a Principal Investigator at the Danforth Plant Science Center (St. Louis, USA) from 2001 to 2009 before joining HKBU. While working in the USA, Professor Xia secured research grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Since joining HKBU in 2009, he has been awarded 20 grants from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong to support his research, including 16 General Research Fund (GRF) projects, three Collaborative Research Fund (CRF-group) grants, and a NSFC/RGC Collaborative Research Scheme grant, securing a cumulative total of over HK$50 million in research funding. Professor Xia has published more than 70 research articles in journals such as Nature, PNAS, Nature Communications, The Plant Cell, EMBO Journal, Nucleic Acids Research, and others, with over 10,300 citations.
Currently, Professor Xia’s research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of RNA modifications, particularly the canonical m7G capping of mRNAs and non-canonical capping, and their roles in regulating gene expression in important biological processes across plants, human cells, animals, and bacteria. His work employs molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry, computational biology, and single-cell omics approaches.
