Xiaowei Wang, now a cardiovascular researcher at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, began her training not at the laboratory bench, but at the patient’s bedside. Growing up in Singapore, Wang was the first in her family to attend school and to receive an education. When she was 16 years old, she found herself at a crossroads: continue onto a two-year academic pre-university track before applying for university or pursue a three-year vocational program.
The latter offered something difficult to ignore: a scholarship and the promise of a job. Wang briefly imagined herself joining the fire brigade, but that vision extinguished itself when she considered the challenge of carrying heavy equipment up the winding staircases of Singapore’s high-rise buildings. Instead, Wang chose a different path intended to help others, by enrolling in a hospital-based cardiac technologist program with Singapore Polytechnic.
The hospital became her classroom. Trained by cardiologists, she learned to perform cardiac ultrasounds and thrived in the fast-paced clinical environment. Every day brought new patients, new challenges, and the urgency of caring for people with heart disease. But alongside the technical skills came a growing sense of curiosity. The hospital relied on established protocols, yet Wang often found herself wondering why things were done a certain way. What if a different method worked just as well—or even better? Those unanswered questions stayed with her.
One of the cardiologists she worked with noticed her inquisitive nature and encouraged her to consider a career in research. That conversation changed everything. “You see how the patients suffer, and a big part of research is to find a way to give them better care,” said Wang.
Wang traveled to Australia through a partnership agreement with Singapore Polytechnic. This set her on the path to leverage her expertise in imaging science, including ultrasound, to improve diagnostics, which later expanded to nanotechnology and mRNA therapies for cardiovascular disease.
Improving Molecular Imaging with Microbubbles and Multi-Colored Biomarkers
While completing her bachelor's degree, Wang sat in on a friend's neuroscience lecture at a neighboring university, blending in with the other 200 students. As the class ended, the lecturer happened to walk out behind her and struck up a conversation. Although she had no background in neuroscience, Wang mentioned that she found the use of ultrasound to study brain activity fascinating. When she shared her own experience performing cardiac ultrasound, the lecturer was surprised.
Wang recalled the interaction, “He asked me, ‘You do ultrasound? It's really hard to train. Would you be interested in scanning my patients?’" That chance encounter led to an honors research project and Wang's first taste of academic research.
Another unexpected conversation would shape her next step. During her honors year, a friend told her about a conversation with cardiologist Karlheinz Peter at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute regarding a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) project. During that conversation, Peter informed Wang’s friend about an ultrasound-based project. Wang’s friend encouraged Wang to reach out to Peter. Although Wang wasn't even sure she wanted to pursue a PhD, she sent the email anyway. Peter offered her advice: Apply for a scholarship and see what happens. That way, Wang would only have to worry about the decision if she got it. She followed his advice, and that decision led her to join Peter’s research group, launching her career in cardiovascular research.
“She wanted to be very close to translational work that really makes a difference for patients at the end,” explained Peter. “She was very much interested in using ultrasound because she realized that the way ultrasound is classically used [is limited] because you can't distinguish tissues very well.”
There’s team spirit and a lightness of her work. It's quite important that she has this optimism and enthusiasm that she transfers to her students as well.
—Karlheinz Peter, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute
Wang wanted to leverage molecular imaging to look for symptoms before a heart attack or before an irreversible anatomy change. Ideally, this would occur in real time to assess the development of arterial thrombosis, a blood clot in an artery, and monitor whether pharmacological efforts could successfully break up the clot.
“We did a project at that time where we coupled ultrasound [with microbubbles] and brought them to thrombi,” said Peter. Microbubbles are tiny gas-filled spheres with a lipid shell that are useful in enhancing ultrasound imaging. The gas reflects ultrasound waves differently and serves as a contrast to the surrounding tissue, making it easier to discern blood vessels and thrombi, or blood clots.1
The microbubbles had antibodies on their surface that targeted activated platelets, which contributed to clots, and provided the researchers with high-resolution images of forming and dissolving thrombi. “I very soon realized that we could see what we want, but there is no real point in telling a patient, ‘You’re going to have a heart attack,’ if we don’t find a way to solve it,” said Wang.
From this experience, Wang soon began thinking of targeted drug therapies and nanoparticles for theranostic approaches. She stayed in Peter’s group as a postdoctoral researcher to further branch out and explore these avenues. Building upon the microbubble work, Wang and her colleagues combined a recombinant fibrinolytic drug. This way, they could monitor the changes in thrombi in real time while simultaneously treating the thrombosis. This approach proved as effective as commercial drugs but without the common complication of prolonged bleeding time.2
More recently in her own research group, she and her team have also developed a new imaging technique to provide multi-colored images of the cardiovascular system. Current diagnostic imaging techniques are limited in that they can only detect one contrast agent at a time. With multi-targeted fluorine MRI, this new approach brings that number to three.3
It consists of three colored biomarkers that enable researchers to discern early-stage disease from mid-progression to late-stage disease. For instance, in the context of atherosclerosis, the biomarker cocktail can reveal the accumulation of cells that lead to plaque formation. While the work is in early stages of development, the idea is to obtain a wealth of information. A picture is worth a thousand words, and in this case, it greatly helps provide an understanding of how the disease develops and leads the way for tailored treatments for patients.
Tweak and Target: Tailoring mRNA Delivery for the Heart
Aside from improved thrombi detection and developing new imaging modalities, Wang also delved into nanoparticle drug delivery systems paired with mRNA therapies.
“Because I came from a clinical background, I had zero idea of biotechnology or nanotechnology when I started. It’s difficult for us to solve an issue that is as complex as cardiovascular disease. It's not going to be one small thing, so you must learn how to build a group around you whether it's collaborators, mentors, or departments.”
Rather than trying to become an expert in every discipline, Wang brought together researchers with complementary skills. One researcher who helped Wang with nanotechnology was Mark Vidallon, who joined Wang’s team in the molecular imaging and nanotherapeutics group as a postdoctoral researcher in 2021.
A chemist and colloid scientist, Vidallon’s training involved nanoparticle synthesis and drug delivery, which aligned well with Wang’s mRNA delivery system project. While Vidallon brought expertise in nanoparticle design, he had little experience with mRNA therapeutics. Wang and her team helped bridge that gap.
Wang tackles complex research questions by fostering a multidisciplinary, collaborative team.
Andrew Craig
Together, the team works to develop delivery systems tailored specifically for cardiovascular disease. Although mRNA therapies have transformed infectious disease research and are rapidly expanding into cancer treatment, cardiovascular applications present unique challenges.
“The nanoparticle that is being used is a self-adjuvant, which is quite nice if you're doing a vaccine where you're trying to build antibody against it,” explained Wang. “But for cardiovascular atherosclerosis, where the disease is triggered by inflammation, using such particles would aggravate your disease.”
Wang has worked with chemists and immunologists to reduce the immune response reaction to nanoparticles for mRNA delivery. Because of this, Vidallon remarked, “We derive inspiration from vaccines and cancer immunotherapies and the design of their delivery systems…[but] our focus is to tweak both the chemistry and an architectural design of those systems in order to make them more compatible for cardiovascular applications.”
While lipid nanoparticles are typically used to deliver mRNA, Wang and her team turned to alternatives such as microbubbles and nanodroplets, which can be stimulated by ultrasound. They developed nanodroplets that carry an mRNA load along with a strong ultrasound contrast as they travel to their destination. Then, an ultrasound triggers the mRNA release. When tested in mice, they found that this system works as a site-specific therapy that can also overcome delivery limitations.4
“It's the potential translational application of the research that's quite important, and she drives that very much… She picks up [and learns] all the new technologies and is also developing new technology on her own as well,” said Peter.
Fostering Community and Uplifting the Next Generation
For Wang, mentoring others is as important as conducting research. “There’s a big part of it that has to do with my background, growing up being a little bit disadvantaged,” she explained.
“I benefited from the helping hands of other people.” This is a big driver in her motivation to give back to her community, from mentees to high school students. “If I can get to a comfortable position where I am doing something that I enjoy doing, then why not make it easier for them and try and help them along the way.” That philosophy extends throughout her laboratory.
“You normally hear her laughing, and she works on the opposite side of the floor [from me],” said Peter. “There’s team spirit and a lightness of her work. It's quite important that she has this optimism and enthusiasm that she transfers to her students as well.”
For younger people, if they have been confined to a certain way of life, the best option is to show them that it can be done and give them a hand if they need it.
—Xiaowei Wang, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute
She is always lifting everyone up, said Vidallon. Wang’s group consists of a multidisciplinary team from various backgrounds and career stages. He described Wang’s mentoring style as flexible, tailoring her style to help trainees achieve their goals. Wang encourages them to apply for grants, attend conferences, build collaborations, and develop professionally.
Her mentorship extends well beyond her own laboratory. Wang regularly works with high school students across Melbourne, inviting them into the lab, helping them develop science projects, and introducing them to careers they may never have considered.
“I think it's quite difficult for people to know where they can go or what they can achieve…especially with people who are a little bit more disadvantaged,” Wang said and added when she was young, her mother thought that being a secretary would have been the best thing in Wang’s life. Research was not available as an option. “For younger people, if they have been confined to a certain way of life, the best option is to show them that it can be done and give them a hand if they need it.”
Arnold Ju, a biomechanical engineer at the University of Sydney whose work focuses on biomechanics and includes developing a blood-clot-on-a-chip device, has watched Wang's career growth since their postdoctoral days, said, “I can see the ultrasound combined therapeutics or diagnostics is quite good, and there are lots of technologies recently developed in ultrasound field.”
He credits her not only for advancing ultrasound-enabled therapeutics but also for inspiring young scientists. Ju remarked that Australia has a strong community mentality, educating and supporting one another, and Wang embodies this in her work—both research and outreach. Watching Wang engage with students inspired Ju to welcome visiting students into his own laboratory and better communicate how engineering research can improve patients' lives.
Although her career has taken her from the patient's bedside to the research bench, Wang's motivation has never changed. Whether through molecular imaging, nanoparticle-enabled mRNA therapies, or mentoring the next generation of scientists, her work is ultimately driven by one goal: helping people live better lives.
- Wang X, et al. Novel single-chain antibody-targeted microbubbles for molecular ultrasound imaging of thrombosis: Validation of a unique noninvasive method for rapid and sensitive detection of thrombi and monitoring of success or failure of thrombolysis in mice. Circulation. 2012;125(25):3117-3126.
- Wang X, et al. Thrombus-targeted theranostic microbubbles: A new technology towards concurrent rapid ultrasound diagnosis and bleeding-free fibrinolytic treatment of thrombosis. Theranostics. 2016;6(5):726-738.
- Flögel U, et al. Multi-targeted 1H/19F MRI unmasks specific danger patterns for emerging cardiovascular disorders. Nat Commun. 2026;12:5847.
- Liu H, et al. Precision mRNA delivery via ultrasound-controlled release perfluorocarbon emulsions: An innovative ultrasound theranostic strategy with 19F MRI feasibility. Small. 2026;22(11):e06806.
