Affiliation: University of Minnesota, Department of Entomology

Dr. Xin-Ru Wang has been in training as a postdoctoral research associate for tick and tick-borne pathogens research since 2018 at the Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota. She focuses on Ixodes scapularis and Amblyomma americanum ticks and the rickettsial transmit. Her current research centers on tick immune systems, including cell signaling pathways and programmed cell death pathways, monitoring the underlying molecular events associated with rickettsial survival within the different vectors. Her studies investigate the mechanisms used by rickettsiae to survive, persist and be transmitted, and aim to 1) explore the routes of tick-borne pathogens transmission and 2) discover new vaccine and therapeutic drug candidates for prevention and control of tick-borne disease outbreaks. Dr. Wang completed her graduate studies and received her PhD at Zhejiang University in 2016. She received postdoc training in the institute of insect science at Zhejiang University from 2016-2018. She continued her studies on insect vectors and their transmitted plant viruses as her dissertation research.