Take 6: Xiaoping Bao, College of Engineering
Xiaoping Bao is a Purdue University professor of chemical engineering from the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering in the College of Engineering. He and his colleagues published research about their method to produce off-the-shelf human immune cells that show strong antitumor activity, according to a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell Reports.
Bao generously shared some of his time to answer our questions.
Question: Has there been a time when people told you to give up, but you persisted?
Xiaoping Bao: I never ran over 1.5 km in high school, but decided to participate a 1.5 km running competition. Many of my friends told me to quit, but I finally made it. Afterwards, I could run 3 km, 5 km, 10 km and eventually a marathon. I learned persistence from this lesson.
Q: Who are your Purdue collaborators? How do they complement or amplify your abilities?
Bao: I have been collaborating with many faculty within and outside Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, including Dr. You-Yeon Won, Dr. Can Li, Dr. Qing Deng, Dr. Bumsoo Han, Dr. Shihuan Kuang, and many others at Purdue.
Most research projects in my lab are multidisciplinary, and my collaborators always bring to us complementary expertise, such as mathematical modeling, immunology, stem cell biology, biomaterials and microfluidic device fabrication. For instance, in this neutrophil study published in Cell Reports, Dr. Qing Deng helped us to characterize neutrophils that are made from human pluripotent stem cells and Dr. Can Li performed quantitative data analysis.
Q: In the movie of your life, who would you like to see play you?
Bao: Tom Hanks, particularly in “Forrest Gump,” for his persistence, which is a required characteristic for me to perform risky research activities in my current work.
Q: What is a discovery you still hope to make in your career or to see in your lifetime?
Bao: As a faculty member, most of my current and past research work focuses on fundamental understanding of diseases, such as myocardial infarction and cancer. In the next stage of my career or in my lifetime, I hope to find a cure or curable treatment for heart diseases or cancer through my translational research.
Q: What is the most useful tool in your lab, office or home?
Bao: I think my experimental equipment, computer and treadmills are the most useful tool in my lab, office and home, respectively. However, if family photo was a tool, it’s the most useful one to comfort myself while I am at work.
Q: What’s one habit that makes you more effective or efficient in daily life?
Bao: During regular working hours, listening to quiet songs and marking my schedules in Google Calendar in a timely manner make me more effective or efficient. Running or other exercises will help me to escape from inefficient work and refuel my energy.
Thank you again Xiaoping Bao for participating in Take 6!
