PhD, MAE, FSNAS, FEurASc, FAIMBE, FSNMMI
Director of the Center for Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
Professor, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, Jinan, 250117
China
Group Website: www.cnmmichenlab.com
Xiaoyuan (Shawn) Chen obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Chemistry from Nanjing University in 1993 and 1996, respectively, and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Idaho in 1999. After completing postdoctoral training at Syracuse University and Washington University in St. Louis, he held faculty positions at the University of Southern California and Stanford University. He then served as a Senior Investigator and Laboratory Chief at the National Institutes of Health from 2009 to 2020, and subsequently joined the National University of Singapore as the Nasrat Muzayyin Chair Professor in Medicine and Technology. More recently, he joined Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute as Professor and Director of the Center for Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging in 2026. His research focuses on molecular imaging, theranostics, nanomedicine, and clinical translation. In this area, his laboratory develops molecular probes, radiopharmaceuticals, nanomaterials, and delivery systems for disease diagnosis and therapy, and has supported more than 10 investigational new drug applications. In addition, he has published more than 1,200 papers and several books, with over 185,000 citations and an h-index of 224 (Google Scholar, July 2026). Beyond his research achievements, he is the founding editor of Theranostics (IF 14.9). He was elected an AIMBE Fellow (2016), an SNMMI Fellow (2020), and a Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences (2024). He was also elected a Member of Academia Europaea (2024) and a Member of the Singapore National Academy of Science (2024). Moreover, his major honors include the NIBIB Mentor Award (2012), the NIH Director’s Award (2014), the ACS Bioconjugate Chemistry Lecturer Award (2016), the SNMMI Michael J. Welch Award (2019), the JBN Trailblazer Award (2023), election to the Advanced Materials Hall of Fame (2023), and the NUS School of Medicine Best Researcher of the Year Award (2025).
Representative Publications
1. H Deng*, L Li, C Zhao, Z Wang, Y Xiao, P Huang*, Siegwart D*, X Chen*. Nanotechnology-mediated precision delivery of mRNA. Nature Materials. 2026 Jun 18. doi: 10.1038/s41563-026-02623-5.
2. Q You, G Wu, H Li, J Liu, F Cao, L Ding, F Liang, B Zhou, L Ma, L Zhu, C Wang, Y Yang, X Chen*. A nanovaccine targeting cancer stem cells and bulk cancer cells for postoperative cancer immunotherapy. Nature Nanotechnology. 2025, 20 (9), 1298-1311.
3. L Rao*, Y Yuan, X Shen, G Yu, X Chen*. Designing nanotheranostics with machine learning. Nature Nanotechnology. 2024, 19 (12), 1769-1781.
4. L Li, J Yin, W Ma, L Tang, J Zou, L Yang, T Du, Y Zhao, L Wang, Z Yang*, C Fan, J Chao*, X Chen*. A DNA origami device spatially controls CD95 signalling to induce immune tolerance in rheumatoid arthritis. Nature Materials. 2024, 23 (7), 993-1001.
5. Z Feng, X Zhang, J Zhou, Q Li, L Chu, G Di, Z Xu, Q Chen, W Wang, X Jiang, H Xia, X Chen*. An in vitro-transcribed circular RNA targets the mitochondrial inner membrane cardiolipin to ablate EIF4G2+/PTBP1+ pan-adenocarcinoma. Nature Cancer. 2024, 5 (1), 30-46.
6. Y Feng, W Tai, P Huang, S Qi, X Yu, M Li, M Li, M Zhang, F Cao, X Gao, K Yang, B Bai, J Lei, M Cheng, Y Li, G Cheng*, X Chen*, G Yu*. Albumin-recruiting lipid nanoparticle potentiates the safety and efficacy of mRNA vaccines by avoiding liver accumulation. Nature Materials. 2025, 24 (11), 1826-1839.
