Dr. Xiaolei Wang is an Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine (TUSOM). After receiving her doctorate in 2001 from Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Dr. Wang completed postdoctoral trainings in the laboratory of Dr. Honghai Wang at Fudan University for TB study in 2003 and in the laboratory of Dr. Ronald S Veazey at Tulane National Primate Research Center (TNPRC) for the study of pathogenesis of pediatric AIDS in 2009. Dr. Wang joined the faculty at Tulane University as an instructor in 2009, was promoted to tenure-track Assistant Professor in 2013 and then tenured Associate Professor in 2020.
Dr. Wang maintains an active research program focused on development of immune systems in early life and immunopathogenesis of infectious disease especially in pediatric host. Dr. Wang currently serves as academic editors for multiple scientific journals, and she is also a member of the TNPRC Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC).
My research foci are to develop a better understanding of the development of the immune system and the immunopathogenesis of infectious diseases in pediatric hosts, including but not limited to AIDS, ZIKA and TB infections. Our previous and current studies in infant macaques have provided tremendous insight into pediatric HIV pathogenesis and a better understanding of neonatal primate immunology. We have developed a novel concept of compartmentalized, or organ-specific maturation of the developing immune system in infants, which we are attempting to capitalize on in current and future studies to optimize treatment and immunization strategies by directly targeting mucosal sites for life-threatening diseases including pediatric AIDS and TB.
We are currently recruiting postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students for research.
Wang X, Rasmussen T, Pahar, B, Poonia B, Alvarez X, Lackner A and Veazey R. (2007). Massive infection and loss of CD4+ T cells occurs in the intestinal tract of neonatal rhesus macaques in acute SIV infection. Blood.109(3): 1174-8 PMCID: PMC1785148
Wang X, Xu H, Gill A, Pahar B, Kempf D, Rasmussen T, Lackner AA, and Veazey RS. (2009). Monitoring a4b7 integrin expression on circulating CD4+ T cells as a surrogate marker for tracking intestinal CD4+ T cell loss in SIV infection. Mucosal Immunology. 2: 518-526. PMCID: PMC3702381
Wang X, Xu H, Pahar B, Alvarez X, Green LC, Dufour J, Moroney-Rasmussen T, Lackner AA, and Veazey RS. (2010). Simian immunodeficiency virus selectively infects proliferating CD4+ T cells in neonatal rhesus macaques. Blood. 116(20): 4168-74. PMCID: PMC2993622
Shen C, Xu H, Liu D, Veazey RS, Wang X. (2014). Development of serum antibodies during early infancy in rhesus macaques: Implications for humoral immune responses to vaccination at birth. Vaccine. 15;32(41):5337-42. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.20107.036. PMCID: PMC4143459.
Veazey RS, Lu Y-J, Xu H, Ziani W, Doyle-Meyers LA, Ratterree MS, and Wang X. (2018). Maternal antibodies against tetanus toxoid do not inhibit potency of antibody responses to autologous antigens in newborn rhesus monkeys. J Med Primatol. 47(1):35-39. doi: 10.1111/jmp.12281. PMID: 28585307
Xu H, Ziani W, Shao J, Doyle-Meyers LA, Russell-Lodrigue KE, Ratterree M, Veazey RS and Wang X. (2018) Impaired development, differentiation and expansion of germinal center follicular T helper cells in SIV- infected neonatal macaques. J. Immunol. pii:ji1800235. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.1800235. PMID: 30104244
