Ji-Xin Cheng
Cheng was born in Jixi, Anhui Province, P. R. China in 1971. He attended
University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) from 1989 to 94 and
received a Guo MoRuo Prize, the highest award for undergraduates at USTC. His
PhD study from 1994 to 98, under the supervision of Qingshi Zhu at USTC, was
awarded with President Special Scholarship. As a graduate student, he worked as
a research assistant at Universite Paris-sud and the Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology (HKUST). After postdoctoral training in Yijing Yan’s
group at HKUST and Sunney Xie’s group at Harvard University, Cheng moved to
Purdue University in 2003 as an Assistant Professor in Weldon School of
Biomedical Engineering and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2009. At
Purdue University Cheng has built a
multidisciplinary research program that spans bioimaging,
nanophotonics, and nanomedicine. Cheng and his group have chased a broad range
of biological systems with nonlinear optical microscopy, including drug eluting
stents, membrane domains, myelin sheath, atherosclerotic plaque, lipid
metabolism, and mammary tumor. His current imaging research is focused on
cellular processes in live tissues and disease progression in live animals.
Along the direction of translational research, Cheng and his group develops
intravital flow cytometry for detection of rare circulating tumor cells and
polymer micelle based nanomedicine for repair of spinal cord injury. He and
coworkers also developed gold nanorods as a two-photon luminescence imaging and
photothermal therapy agent. Supported by NSF, AHA, NIH R03, R21, and R01 grants,
Cheng and his group have published more than 50
peer-reviewed articles
in PNAS and other journals since 2005. Cheng teaches a graduate level
Biomedical Optics
course which is offered every spring semester and an undergraduate level
Biomedical Instrumentation course. He is the
co-organizer of a biennial symposium "Biological Applications of Nonlinear
Optics" in the national meeting of American Chemistry Society.