Lina Ni

Lina Ni is an Associate Professor in the School of Neuroscience under the College of Science at Virginia Tech. Her lab at the Biocomplexity Institute (Room 284) investigates how sensory systems regulate behavior, focusing on thermosensation and neural circuits in Drosophila.

• Education: Ph.D. in Neuroscience (University of Massachusetts Medical School, 2008), Postdoctoral Fellow in Neuroscience (Brandeis University, 2008–2013), B.A. in Biotechnology (Wuhan University, China).

Her research integrates molecular genetics, biochemistry, electrophysiology, calcium imaging, and behavioral analysis to study sensory transduction mechanisms. Key projects include molecular identification of IR-based temperature receptors and thermal system integration for physiological homeostasis.

Recent publications (2016–2024) span neuroscience, immunometabolism, and microbiology, with subfields in Drosophila thermal biology, receptor signaling, and macrophage polarization. Collaborative work appears in journals like Nature, eLife, and Cell Reports.

Students: Wynn Legon, Sweta Agrawal, Meike van der Heijden. Contact: linani@vt.edu.