Dr. Hao Guo has been appointed as Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics, effective Jan. 1, 2021.
Dr. Guo earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Shandong University, (Jinan, China) in 2009 followed by a PhD in Cell Biology from Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Science (Beijing, China) in 2015. Dr. Guo joined the laboratory of Dr. Jenny Ting as a postdoctoral research associate in 2016, where she has studied countermeasures for radiation syndrome and inhibitory immune receptors. Dr. Guo recently published a paper in Science as first author, showing that mice exposed to potentially lethal levels of total body radiation were protected from radiation damage if they had specific types of bacteria in their gut. Radiation absorbed in a clinical setting or during an accidental exposure can cause damage to tissues. In this study, the bacteria mitigated radiation exposure and enhanced the recovery of blood cell production as well as repair of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract.