Rate My Professor Xuefeng Wang

Xuefeng Wang is an Associate Professor in the Research Division of the Hoxworth Blood Center at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, a position he assumed in August 2023. Previously, he held the rank of Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at Iowa State University from January 2020 to July 2023 and Assistant Professor in the same department from August 2015 to December 2019. He also served as Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Iowa State University from January 2021 to July 2023. Wang completed his postdoctoral training as a fellow in the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from May 2010 to July 2015. His academic journey began with a Ph.D. in Physics from Purdue University in December 2009, followed by an M.S. in Physics from Tsinghua University in July 2004, and a B.S. in Physics from Tsinghua University in September 2001.

Wang's laboratory conducts biomedical studies using innovative biophysical and biochemical approaches, with a primary focus on the mechanobiology and enzymology of blood cells such as platelets, monocytes/macrophages, and neutrophils. The team develops state-of-the-art DNA-based biosensors to visualize and map the forces and DNase activities generated by these cells, exploring their physiological functions in hemostasis, innate immune responses, cell migration, platelet contraction, phagocytosis, and thrombosis. His pioneering work has earned significant recognition, including the National Institutes of Health Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) for early-stage investigators from 2018 to 2023 ($1,845,555) and a renewed MIRA for established investigators from 2025 to 2029 ($2,316,600), as well as National Science Foundation grants such as "Platelets on Chip" (2022-2025, $492,076 as co-PI) and "Study of the regulative role of integrin tension" (2018-2023, $371,028 as PI). Key publications include "Force-bearing phagocytic adhesion rings mediate the phagocytosis of surface-bound particles" in Nature Communications (2025), "Develop Tandem Tension Sensor to Gauge Integrin-Transmitted Molecular Forces" in ACS Sensors (2024), "Filopodial adhesive force in discrete nodes revealed by integrin molecular tension imaging" in Current Biology (2022), "Single-Molecule Force Imaging Reveals That Podosome Formation Requires No Extracellular Integrin-Ligand Tensions or Interactions" in ACS Nano (2022), and "Cellular Force Nanoscopy with 50 nm Resolution Based on Integrin Molecular Tension Imaging" in Journal of the American Chemical Society (2020). Wang holds multiple patents on molecular sensing technologies, including those commercialized by Perfinity Biosciences, Inc., and serves as a reviewer for journals such as Nature Communications, PNAS, and Science Advances. He is a member of the Biophysical Society, Biomedical Engineering Society, American Society for Cell Biology, American Physical Society, and Optical Society of America.