Wen Xie MD, PhD

Wen Xie (MD, PhD) is Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacology, Director of the Center for Pharmacogenetics, and Joseph Koslow Endowed Chair in Pharmaceutical Sciences. Dr. Xie obtained his MD degree from Peking University Health Science Center, and PhD in Cell Biology from University of Alabama at Birmingham.

He completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Ronald M. Evans at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California before joining the University of Pittsburgh in 2002. Dr. Xie holds a secondary appointment at the Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology at the School of Medicine.

The research focus of Dr. Xie's laboratory is nuclear receptor-mediated transcriptional regulation of genes that encode drug metabolizing enzymes and drug transporters. In addition to metabolizing drugs, the same enzyme and transporter systems are also responsible for the homeostasis of numerous endobiotic molecules.

Therefore, this regulation has broad implications in drug metabolism and many human diseases, including hepatobiliary diseases, endocrine disorders, metabolic syndrome, and cancers. Dr. Xie’s research is conducted using a combination of cell cultures and genetically engineered mice that include transgenic, knockout and humanized mice.