Lixia Diao

Lixia Diao is a Senior Professor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Her research focuses on cancer biology, thoracic oncology, and tumor immunology, with a particular emphasis on lung cancer and small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Her recent work explores synthetic lethal targeting of TRIP13 and Aurora A in Rb-deficient cancer cells, predictive biomarkers for antibody-drug conjugate resistance in SCLC, and transcriptomic programs inferred from circulating tumor DNA methylation. She has also investigated miR-29a/b1 cluster loss and its role in immunosuppression within the tumor microenvironment, alongside DNA damage response signatures linked to chemotherapy outcomes. Her publications appear in venues such as Cancer Research, Molecular Cancer, and Science Advances.