Dr. Xiao Song is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Medical University of South Carolina and a full member of the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center. She received her Ph.D. training in tumor immunology at Peking University and completed postdoctoral training in brain tumor biology at Northwestern University.

Her research program investigates how RNA alternative splicing reshapes gene-regulatory networks to drive glioma malignancy, cell-state plasticity, immune evasion, and therapeutic resistance. Her laboratory integrates single-cell and bulk transcriptomics, isoform-resolved computational analyses, targeted RNA manipulation, and functional tumor models to define how specific RNA isoforms regulate glioma biology and to develop splicing-directed therapeutic strategies.

Her research has established RNA alternative splicing as an important regulator of glioma cell identity, developmental hierarchy, tumorigenicity, and therapeutic response. Her work combines computational discovery with functional validation using patient-derived glioma models, glioma stem-like cells, iPSC-based neural models, orthotopic tumor models, and molecular and cellular approaches.

A major focus of the Song Laboratory is to identify disease-associated RNA isoforms and determine their functional roles in glioma progression and therapy response. The laboratory also develops RNA-targeting approaches, including CRISPR/dCasRx-based splicing modulation, to selectively manipulate RNA isoforms and investigate their therapeutic potential.

Another area of research focuses on the interactions between glioma cells and the brain immune microenvironment, including microglia-glioma interactions. The laboratory uses transcriptomic and functional approaches to understand how tumor cells communicate with and reprogram immune cells in the brain and how these interactions influence tumor progression and therapeutic response.