Research
Heart & Lung Diseases and Stem Cell Biology
Appointments
Associate Professor, Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine, Broad Stem Cell Research Center
Biography
Mingxia Gu, MD, PhD, investigates how blood vessels contribute to organ development, disease and regeneration. By leveraging patient-specific stem cell models and advanced bioengineering techniques, she seeks to develop novel, personalized therapies for vascular and cardiopulmonary diseases, including congenital heart and lung defects.
For nearly all children born with a structural heart or lung disease, surgery is the only available therapy. Gu’s research aims to expand therapeutic options by developing new therapies and regenerative approaches that could be administered earlier — before birth.
The vasculature is a dynamic and specialized network essential for organ function, possessing significant plasticity and regenerative potential. Gu investigates how blood vessels influence tissue development, disease progression and healing, with the goal of developing new therapies for vascular-related diseases and advancing organ-regeneration strategies.
A central focus of this research involves generating patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cell-, or iPSC-, derived endothelial and smooth muscle cells, as well as vascularized organoids, to create more accurate disease models. By comparing these iPSC-based models with patient-derived vascular lesion samples, Gu has identified disease-specific cellular changes and mapped transcriptomic and epigenomic alterations at single-cell resolution. Recent efforts have focused on engineering vascularized heart, lung and brain organoids to explore how blood vessels interact with surrounding cells during development and disease.
In addition to illuminating disease mechanisms, Gu leverages a high-throughput drug screening platform paired with machine learning algorithms to identify compounds that can reverse disease pathology in a personalized manner. She is also investigating the signaling pathways that direct tissue-specific endothelial cell fate — the process by which vascular cells take on specialized functions — with the goal of regenerating blood vessel networks in congenital heart and lung defects.
Through a multidisciplinary approach that integrates bioengineering, synthetic biology, stem cell biology and computational modeling, Gu’s research insights could drive advances in vascular medicine and regenerative therapies.
Publications
- Zhang, F, Ou, L, Shao, J, Gu, M, Jia, H. Assessing cytotoxic and antibacterial effects of high dispersion-stable sub-5 nm silver particles fabricated by ionic liquid-mediated electrochemical synthesis. Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2026;14 :1796805. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2026.1796805. PubMed PMID:42094284 PubMed Central PMC13139332.
- Gu, M, Kang, J, Zhou, Y, Lin, L, Li, C, Wu, M et al.. Mind-body exercise as epigenetic modulators: Rewiring neural circuits for stress resilience and cognitive aging. IBRO Neurosci Rep. 2026;20 :673-687. doi: 10.1016/j.ibneur.2026.04.010. PubMed PMID:42093852 PubMed Central PMC13141598.
- Cao, Y, Xiong, N, Gao, W, Gu, W, Gu, M, Pan, J et al.. The prognostic value of left atrial low-voltage areas in atrial fibrillation recurrence after pulmonary vein isolation: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Cardiovasc Disord. 2026; :. doi: 10.1186/s12872-026-05937-z. PubMed PMID:42092789 .
- Wang, N, Li, X, Wang, L, Zhu, Z, Gu, M, Zou, K et al.. Global Trends in Postoperative Sepsis After Pancreatoduodenectomy: A Bibliometric Analysis. J Surg Res. 2026;323 :48-57. doi: 10.1016/j.jss.2026.04.010. PubMed PMID:42092273 .
- Chen, X, Liu, H, Jiang, L, Hong, X, Kong, M, Wang, X et al.. PA-X I94V mutation modulates the pathogenicity of the highly pathogenic H7N9 influenza A virus in mice and chickens. Vet Microbiol. 2026;319 :111044. doi: 10.1016/j.vetmic.2026.111044. PubMed PMID:42090884 .