Xiaoliang Sunney Xie

Xiaoliang Sunney Xie (; born 1962 in Beijing, China) is a Chinese American biochemist, considered a founding father of single-molecule biophysical chemistry and single-molecule enzymology.
Early life.
He received his B.Sc. in Chemistry from Peking University in 1984, and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 1990 from University of California at San Diego. After a brief postdoctoral appointment at University of Chicago, he joined Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he rose from Senior Research Scientist to Chief Scientist. In 1998, he became the first tenured professor recruited by Harvard University among Chinese Scholars who came to the United States since Chinese economic reform.
Research.
He had been the Mallinckrodt Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University until 2018, when he became the Lee Shau-kee Professor of Peking University. Currently, he is also the Director of Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center (BIOPIC), and the Director of Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics (ICG), both at Peking University.
As a pioneer of single-molecule biophysical chemistry, Coherent Raman scattering microscopy, and single-cell genomics, he made major contributions to the emergence of these fields. Furthermore, he has made significant advances on medical applications of label-free optical imaging and single-cell genomics. In particular, his inventions in single-cell genomics have been used in "in vitro" fertilization to benefit hundreds of couples in China by avoiding the transmission of monogenic diseases to their newborns.
As of Jan 2019, Xie has published over 226 papers. More than forty of his students and post-doctorates have become professors at major universities around the world, and two are co-founders of start-up companies.
Professor Xie’s current research interests include the following scientific, technological, and medical areas: