physician professor biology professor
Hu pursued medical and clinical training in Shanghai before developing a research career in auditory neuroscience and regenerative medicine. He completed residency and fellowship training in neurotology and hearing research in Shanghai and served as a faculty member and attending doctor at RenJi Hospital of Shanghai Second Medical University. His subsequent work has connected clinical otolaryngology with experimental studies of inner-ear cell replacement and hearing restoration.
Hu received a Doctor of Medicine degree from Shanghai Medical University in 1999. He later completed a Doctor of Philosophy at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden in 2005, where his research focused on neurotology, hearing research, and cell replacement therapy for the inner ear. His academic training also included residency and fellowship work in neurotology and hearing research in Shanghai, followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Virginia.
Hu began his academic and clinical career in Shanghai, where he completed residency and fellowship training in neurotology and hearing research and subsequently became a faculty member and attending doctor at RenJi Hospital of Shanghai Second Medical University. In 2005 he moved to the University of Virginia for postdoctoral research in neuroscience. His work there included studies of inner-ear stem cells, mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition, and the production of sensory hair cells in vitro. In 2008 he joined Wayne State University School of Medicine as an assistant professor and later became a tenured professor in the Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. At Wayne State, his laboratory has investigated stem cell-based regeneration of auditory hair cells, spiral ganglion neurons, and synaptic connections, as well as epigenetic approaches to hearing restoration. His research has received support from the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, the Deafness Research Foundation, the American Hearing Research Foundation, the American Academy of Audiology, and institutional programs at Wayne State University. He has also taught graduate courses in stem cell biology, molecular and cellular biology, biotechnology, cell biology, and cell and molecular physiology.
Conducted research on stem cell-based regeneration of the inner ear, including the generation of sensory hair-cell progenitors, differentiation of neural stem cells, and restoration of auditory synapses for potential treatment of hearing loss.
Demonstrated that inner-ear cells can undergo epithelial-to-mesenchymal or mesenchymal-to-epithelial transitions associated with the production of hair-cell or prosensory-like cells in experimental systems.
(Co-authored research investigating histone deacetylase in...)
2014(Co-authored review evaluating endogenous hair-cell regene...)
2013(Co-authored study reporting that adult human inner-ear se...)
2012(Co-authored study examining DNA demethylation as an epige...)
2022(Co-authored experimental study showing survival and neura...)
2005(Co-authored research demonstrating the production of pola...)
2007(Co-authored study of embryonic stem-cell survival, differ...)
2005(Authored study examining the development and maturation o...)
2013(Co-authored study examining the effect of 5-azacytidine o...)
2026(Co-authored research investigating the role of progranuli...)
2026Hu is a member of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology and has participated in scientific peer review for organizations including the National Institutes of Health, the Medical Research Council of the United Kingdom, the Austrian Science Fund, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
