Wilson Xu

Prior to founding and joining Balto Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Dr. Xu was a faculty member and lab head at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Nevada Cancer Institute. Dr. Xu’s lab reported in 2003 that glucose, through glycolysis, induces mono-ubiquitination of histone H2B (uH2B), revealing for the first time metabolic regulation of histone modification. His lab also demonstrated that glucose deficiency and loss of uH2B represent novel metabolic and epigenetic hallmarks of a wide variety of human solid tumors, which have laid a new foundation for understanding tumorigenesis and provided novel targets for therapeutic intervention. Dr. Xu is also known for constructing the original TetR-based yeast two-hybrid system. The molecular tool has not only enabled the discovery of a large number of protein interacting partners in the research community, but have also enabled the discovery of a small molecule PPI inhibitor which has been FDA-approved for Phase 2 clinical trial. Dr. Xu earned his PhD in biotechnology (protein biochemistry) from Massey University in New Zealand in 1991. He completed his Human Frontier Science Program postdoctoral fellowship at the Molecular Biology Institute of UCLA and the Department of Genetics of Harvard University. In 2003, Dr. Xu was named American Cancer Society Research Scholar.