Xiaodong obtained her Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 2002 from the University of Pittsburgh working in the laboratory of Professor Peter Wipf. During her graduate study she developed several methodologies to synthesize organometallic zirconium complexes and heterocyclic compounds for asymmetric catalysis and drug discovery.  In 2002 she joined Array BioPharma, Inc. in Boulder, Colorado as a staff scientist using combinatorial chemistry to generate small molecule libraries for a variety of targets in the Lead Generation department.  She then moved to the Lead Optimization department to explore hits from these libraries and identify lead candidates for targets in the therapeutic areas of diabetes and oncology.  In 2006 she relocated to San Diego, CA and joined the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) as a principal investigator.   While at GNF she continued to work on oncology and autoimmune-related diseases.  In the summer of 2008 she was appointed Assistant Professor in the division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products and Assistant Director of Medicinal Chemistry in the Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She will be recruiting and leading a medicinal chemistry team focused on therapeutic targets in area of oncology.