In vivo regulation of cytoplasmic dynein

Xin obtained her BS and MS degrees in Biology from Peking University, and obtained her PhD from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey working on a mini-mouse mutant in the lab of Kiran Chada. During her postdoctoral work in the lab of Ron Morris, she worked on the nuclear-distribution (nud) mutants of Aspergillus nidulans, and contributed to discovering the functional connection between cytoplasmic dynein and LIS1, the product of the causal gene of lissencephaly. In 1999, she established her lab at the Uniformed Services University – F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, where she is currently a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Her lab uses Aspergillus nidulans as a genetic system to study proteins involved in cytoplasmic dynein-mediated transport inside fungal hyphae. Her lab has contributed to the current knowledge of a role of kinesin-1 in dynein accumulation at the microtubule plus ends and the importance of kinesin-1 autoinhibition in dynein-mediated early endosome transport, a role of dynactin and the Hook complex in linking dynein to early endosomes, a role of LIS1 in dynein activation and a role of VezA/vezatin in dynactin assembly.