Xia Gao Lab

The main focus of the Gao lab is to determine how nutritional inputs influence the onset, development, and progression of diseases, as well as develop state-of-the-art nutritional interventions to advance disease prevention and treatment, particularly cancer and obesity. We employ a wide range of in vivo mouse models and in vitro models combined with untargeted and targeted metabolomics, molecular biology, biochemistry, immunology and metagenomics approaches to gain insights into the mechanisms by which the nutrition-host-microbiome trinity affects disease development and control.

Our frontier work in dietary interventions has pioneered the effects of dietary methionine restriction (Nature, 2019) in human circulating metabolism, and its efficacy in cancer control, alone or in combination with chemotherapy or radiotherapy in multiple mouse cancer models. In addition to continued research into the mechanisms of methionine restriction-mediated cancer inhibition, we are currently engaging in nutritional rationale of a broader range of nutrients in the development of cancer and metabolic diseases in pursuit of more effective dietary therapies for metabolic diseases.