Xiaoming (Shawn) He, PhD 

HOHCells, LLC
College Park, MD
United States

Shawn joined the Society for Cryobiology in 2002 and was elected to Fellow in 2026.

Biography

Xiaoming (Shawn) He obtained his PhD in 2004 from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with research focused on developing both low and high-temperature minimally invasive technologies for cancer therapy and understanding the associated thermodynamics, mechanics, and protein-cell-tissue injury mechanisms and kinetics. His postdoctoral training in Harvard Medical School-Massachusetts General Hospital from 2004 to 2007 was focused on cryopreservation of stem and reproductive cells by low-cryoprotectant (CPA) vitrification and quantitative elucidation of the physicochemical processes of vitrification at both cryogenic and ambient temperatures.

Through his independent research since 2007, Dr. He has pioneered 1), the development of cold-responsive nanotechnologies for (i) potentiating the immune responses to cryoablation for achieving cryoimmunotherapy of not only primary but also metastatic cancers, (ii) detaching cells simply by gentle cold treatment without using any toxic chemicals to maximize the functional survival of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) for efficient production of high-quality patient-specific human organoids, and (iii) enabling cryopreservation solely with sugar (e.g., trehalose); 2), the creation of biocompatible sand-polymer constructs for automatic ice-seeding to facilitate automation of consistent and large-scale cryopreservation of cells and tissues by slow freezing for clinical uses; and 3), the microencapsulation of stem cells in biocompatible alginate hydrogel as stem cell-biomaterial constructs for low-CPA vitrification with minimized CPA toxicity. His cryobiology work has been published in a broad category of journals like Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, Advanced Functional Materials, Nano Letters, Small Sciences, Journal of Medical Devices, and Cryobiology. In addition, he founded a startup to translate and commercialize the cryobiology technologies invented in his laboratory.

Dr. He is an Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Medical Devices. He served as the Chair Elect and Chair (2015-2021) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) K17 Committee of Heat and Mass Transfer in Biotechnology. He is an American Cancer Society Research Scholar; an elected Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and ASME; and an elected Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA).

Services to the Society
Dr. He has served the Society as the President-Elect of the Society for Cryobiology since January 2026, Organizer (Executive Co-Chair) of the Society for Cryobiology Annual Meeting 2024, Session Chair of the Society for Cryobiology Annual Meetings since 2008, Invited speaker of the Society for Cryobiology Annual Meetings 2017 and 2018, Abstract reviewer of the Society for Cryobiology Annual Meetings since 2018, and manuscript reviewer of the Cryobiology journal since 2007.

Key Publications

• Wang, Z., Stewart, S., Kumagai, M., Wang, E., Ou, W., Lu, Y., Meng, T., Xu, C., Hong, Y., Ren, S., and He, X. High-yield convenient mass production of high-quality homogenous human iPSC spheroids under Rock inhibitor-free 3D culture enabled by micropatterning and cold-triggered chemical-free cell detachment. Small Science 2025; 5: 2500201
• Ou, W., Stewart, S., Jiang, B., White, A.M., Kwizera, E.A., Xu, J., Shamul, J.G., Tkaczuk, K.H.R., Lu, X., and He, X. In-situ cryo-immune engineering of an immunologically hot tumor microenvironment with cold-responsive nanomaterials for cancer immunotherapy. Nature Communications 2023; 14: 392
• Huang, H., He, X., and Yarmush, M. Advanced technologies for the preservation of mammalian biospecimens. Nature Biomedical Engineering 2021; 5: 793-804
• Jiang, B., Li, W., Stewart, S., Ou, W., Liu, B., Comizzoli, P., and He, X. Sand-mediated ice seeding enables serum-free low-cryoprotectant cryopreservation of human induced pluripotent stem cells. Bioactive Materials 2021; 6: 4377-4388
• Zhang, Y., Wang, H., Stewart, S., Jiang, B., Ou, W., Zhao, G., and He, X. Cold-responsive nanoparticle enables intracellular delivery and rapid release of trehalose for organic solvent-free cryopreservation. Nano Letters 2019; 19: 9051-9061
• Huang, H., Zhang, Y., Zhao, G., Xu, J., Toth, T.L., and He, X. Predehydration and ice seeding in the presence of trehalose enable cell cryopreservation. ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering 2017; 3: 1758-1768
• Huang, H., Choi, J.K., Rao, W., Zhao, S., Agarwal, P., Zhao, G., and He, X. Alginate hydrogel microencapsulation inhibits devitrification and enables large-volume low-CPA cell vitrification. Advanced Functional Materials 2015; 25: 6839-6850
• Li, D. and He, X. Desiccation induced structural alterations in a 66-amino acid fragment of an anhydrobiotic nematode late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) protein. Biomacromolecules 2009; 10: 1469-1477
• Yang, G., Gilstrap, K., Zhang, A., Xu, L.X., and He, X. Collapse temperature of solutions important for lyopreservation of living cells at ambient temperature. Biotechnology and Bioengineering 2010; 106(2): 247-259
• Yang, G., Zhang, A., Xu, L.X., and He, X. Modeling the cell type dependence of diffusion-limited intracellular ice nucleation and growth: Implications for cell cryopreservation by both vitrification and slow freezing. Journal of Applied Physics 2009; 105: 114701
• He, X., Park, E., Fowler, A., Yarmush M., and Toner, M. Vitrification by ultra-fast cooling at a low concentration of cryoprotectants in a quartz microcapillary: A study using murine embryonic stem cells. Cryobiology 2008; 56(3): 223-232
• He, X., Fowler, A., and Toner, M. Water activity and mobility in solutions of glycerol and small molecular weight sugars: Implication for cryo- and lyo- preservation, Journal of Applied Physics 2006; 100 (7): 074702
• He, X. and Bischof, J. C. Analysis of thermal stress in cryosurgery of kidneys. Journal of Biomechanical Engineering 2005; 127(4): 656-661
• He, X. and Bischof, J. C. Quantification of temperature and injury in thermal therapy and cryosurgery. Critical Reviews in Biomedical Engineering 2003; 31(5): 355-421

Scientific Offspring
Dr. He has trained in his research laboratory a total of ~40 postdoctoral researchers/scholars and PhD/MS students, as well as ~35 undergraduate and ~20 high-school researchers. Besides his primary supervision, he has been a proposal/defense committee member of ~35 PhD students. Some of his trainees working on cryobiology as faculty members in academia are Dr. Wujie Zhang (Professor, Milwaukee School of Engineering), Dr. Wei Rao (Professor, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences), Dr. Huaishui Huang (Professor, Xi’an Jiaotong University), Dr. Daixi Li (Associate Professor, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology), Dr. Jung K. Choi (Associate Professor, Yeungnam University), and Dr. Weijie Li (Associate Professor, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology).