Dr. Chenxi Qian
Dr. Chenxi Qian
Contact
Dr. Chenxi Qian
Early-Career Investigator

chenxi.qian@utoronto.ca

Lorelie Lacson, Administrative Assistant
lorelie.lacson@sunnybrook.ca

Early-Career Investigator

Leveraging physics, chemistry and AI, advanced nonlinear vibrational imaging methods can achieve higher throughput for tissue imaging, allowing fast, precision cancer diagnosis and prognosis. Dr. Qian’s lab is aiming to bringing these new tools to new the frontiers in cancer research.

Dr. Qian’s lab focuses on research in both basic and translational sciences. The Qian Lab is developing advanced nonlinear vibrational imaging methods, combining physics/chemistry and machine learning tools, aiming to achieve higher throughput for tissue imaging, and to enable fast, precision cancer diagnosis and prognosis. Dr. Qian is interested in bringing new imaging methods that enables scalable label-free super-resolution interrogations of protein-rich biological structures into cancer imaging and brain imaging.

Dr. Qian’s research interests also include single cell metabolite imaging. As part of his postdoctoral fellowship at Caltech, Dr. Qian worked with pioneers in cancer therapy and single cell metabolomics, demonstrated the promise of Raman spectro-microscopy for mapping metabolites in single cells, and discovered new druggable metabolic susceptibilities. The Qian Lab at Sunnybrook is also developing next-generation imaging methods for single cell metabolomics studies.

Experience & Education
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemistry, California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
  • Research Scholar, Applied Physics, Stanford University
  • PhD, Chemistry, University of Toronto
Current Affiliations
  • Early-Career Investigator, OICR
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto
  • Scientist, Sunnybrook Research Institute
Select Publications
  • Super-resolution label-free volumetric vibrational imaging. Qian C, Miao K, Lin LE, Chen X, Du J, Wei L. Nat Commun. 2021 Jun 15;12(1):3648. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-23951-x.
  • High spatial-resolution imaging of label-free in vivo protein aggregates by VISTA. Lin LE, Miao K, Qian C, Wei L. Analyst. 2021 Jun 28;146(13):4135-4145. doi: 10.1039/d1an00060h.
  • Label-free Super-resolution Imaging Enabled by Vibrational Imaging of Swelled Tissue and Analysis. Miao K, Lin LE, Qian C, Wei L. J Vis Exp. 2022 May 17;(183):10.3791/63824. doi: 10.3791/63824.
  • Raman-guided subcellular pharmaco-metabolomics for metastatic melanoma cells. Du J, Su Y, Qian C, Yuan D, Miao K, Lee D, Ng AHC, Wijker RS, Ribas A, Levine RD, Heath JR, Wei L. Nat Commun. 2020 Sep 24;11(1):4830. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-18376-x.
  • Toward photoswitchable electronic pre-resonance stimulated Raman probes. Lee D, Qian C, Wang H, Li L, Miao K, Du J, Shcherbakova DM, Verkhusha VV, Wang LV, Wei L. J Chem Phys. 2021 Apr 7;154(13):135102. doi: 10.1063/5.0043791.
Research Areas
Imaging
Disease Areas
All
Awards
  • NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2019
  • Connaught Scholarship, 2012
Opportunities to Collaborate

Advanced Optics, AI, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases:

  • Raman microscopy, stimulated Raman scattering imaging (label-free live cell and tissue imaging, methodology)
  • Ultrafast Raman histology and cancer diagnosis/prognosis
  • Tissue clearing and high-throughput volumetric imaging
  • Machine learning aided cell and tissue imaging and fast phenotyping
  • Subcellular metabolomics
  • Tumor microenvironment
  • Neurodegenerative disease models

To collaborate with Dr. Qian, please contact him directly.

Tools
  • VISTA – an AI-assisted, label-free multiplexed super-resolution tissue imaging method.
In the News
New OICR investigator combines physics, chemistry, and artificial intelligence to improve tissue imaging
New OICR investigator combines physics, chemistry, and artificial intelligence to improve tissue imaging
Sep 14, 2023