Affiliation: University of Utah

Dr. Songjun Xiao was born and raised in Tianjin, China. He earned his BS in chemistry from Nankai University in China. He then moved to the US in 2014 and received his PhD degree in bioorganic chemistry from University of Maryland – College Park in 2020. Songjun’s research is highly interdisciplinary, ranging from bioorganic chemistry and supramolecular chemistry to material science and the chemical biology of nucleic acids. Under the guidance of Prof. Jeffery T. Davis, Songjun’s PhD thesis was focused on utilizing synthetic analogs of guanosine to construct functional supramolecular hydrogels. In the summer of 2020, Songjun moved to Salt Lake City and joined the lab of Prof. Cynthia J. Burrows as a postdoctoral associate. His current research is focused on DNA damage, with particular interest in DNA damage sequencing and the effect of the damages on DNA transcription.