Dr. Xu’s research has focused on neuroprotection, axonal regeneration, and recovery of function of traumatic spinal cord and brain injuries. In the past 20 years, he has received continuous support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Craig H Neilsen Foundation, and other grant foundations. He has served as a standing member on various NIH study sections over 15 years. He has published over 200 research papers in prestigious scientific journals including Cell Metabolism, Cell Stem Cell, Nature Neuroscience and Nature Communications. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Neural Regeneration Research (http://www.nrronline.org/). He has served on Editorial Boards of multiple journals including Experimental Neurology and Journal of Neurotrauma. He co-edited three books entitled “Animal Models of Acute Neurological Injuries (I & II)” and “Neural Regeneration”. In 2020, he was listed on the “World’s Top 2% Scientists 2020”. He has been a co-chair of the International Neural Regeneration Symposium since 2011