2018年6月7日波士顿大学刘平华教授学术报告

2018年6月7日波士顿大学刘平华教授学术报告

报告主题：Natural product chemistry: from discovery, synthetic biology based production, to biological functional evaluations

报告人：刘平华教授 波士顿大学

主持人：毛宗万教授

时间：2018年6月7日16:00

地点：丰盛堂芙兰学术中心A403

欢迎广大师生参加！

报告摘要：

Natural product chemistry: from discovery, synthetic biology based production, to biological functional evaluations

Pinghua Liu

Department of Chemistry, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215

To date, natural products are still the main source of human medicine. In the post genome era, there is a renewed interest on natural product studies because genome information revealed that we touch only a tiny portion of the natural product pools. In the presentation, we will summarize our recent efforts in natural product based drug discovery efforts in the following three areas:

1)     Molecular discovery: in this area, we focus on how to efficiently build natural product library that is not feasible through traditional approach;

2)     Process chemistry: in this area, we will summarize some of our recent efforts on developing fermentation based production methods for high value products.

3)     Animal model: how to make use of the unique natural product library for drug discovery efforts.

报告人简介：

NAME                                                                           POSITION TITLE

Liu, Pinghua, Ph.D.                                                     Associate Professor

EDUCATION/TRAINING   

                INSTITUTION   AND LOCATIO                    DEGREE                YEAR(s)         FIELD OF   STUDY       

                                                                                 (if applicable)                         

         Nankai University, PRC                                        B.S.                          1993                   Applied Chemistry

   Chinese Academy of Sciences                                  M.S.                          1996                  Chemical Engineering

University of Minnesota, Twin Cities                          Ph.D.                            2001                Bioorganic Chemistry         

Massachusetts   Institute of Technology                  Post doc                    2001-2005             Biological Chemistry

A. Personal Statement

I was trained with Prof. Hung-wen (Ben) Liu in bioorganic chemistry and enzymology (synthetic organic chemistry, natural product biosynthesis, and mechanistic enzymology). During my last year at graduate school, Prof. Liu moved to Texas and I stayed by myself for one year in Minnesota. During this period, I continued my thesis work by collaborating with Profs. John Lipcombs and Larry Que’s laboratories and got exposure to metallo-enzyme spectroscopies (biophysics). I then joined Prof. JoAnne Stubbe’s laboratory to further horn my skills in metallo-enzyme mechanistic studies. At the same time, I have another co-mentor (Prof. Anthony Sinskey) who is a microbiologist specialized in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. Due to these combined skills, we can integrate tools from chemistry, biology, and spectroscopies to unravel biological processes. At the same time, my research is highly translational in nature, as demonstrated by my experience as the Chief Scientific Officer of a startup company on an anticancer vaccine (phase I clinical trial) and one more synthetic biology that is commercialized in year 2015 (Founder of Ergo-Health LLC). Our research focuses on natural product biosynthesis, their production through synthetic biology approach, and their application as either therapeutics or as tools for chemical biology studies. Selective publications are:

1. Luke J. Higgins, Feng Yan, Pinghua Liu, Hung-wen Liu, Catherine L. Drennan*. “Structural Insight into the Biosynthesis of the Antibiotic Fosfomycin by a Mononuclear Iron Enzyme”, Nature, 2005, 437, 838-844.

2. Wei-chen Chang, Mishtu Dey#, Pinghua Liu#, Steven O. Mansoorabadi#, Sung-Ju Moon, Zongbao Zhao, Catherine L. Drennan, and Hung-wen Liu*, “Mechanistic studies of an unprecedented enzyme-catalysed 1,2-phosphono-migration reaction”, Nature,2013, 496, 114-118.

3. Lishan Zhao, Wei-chen Chang, Youli Xiao,Hung-wen Liu, and Pinghua Liu*.Methylerythritol phosphate pathway of isoprenoid biosynthesis. Annu. Rev. Biochem. 2013, 82:497-530.

4. Wupeng Yan, Heng Song, Fuhang Song, Cheng-Hsuan Wu, Ampon Sae Her, Yi Pu, Shu Wang, Catherine E. Costello, Lixin Zhang*, Pinghua Liu*, and Yan Jessie Zhang*. “Endoperoxide Formation Catalyzed by FtmOx1, an α-Ketoglutarate-dependent Mononuclear Non-heme Iron Enzyme”, Nature, 2015, 527,539-543.

5. Li Chen, Nathchar Naowarojna, Heng Song, Shu Wang, Jiangyun Wang, Zixin Deng, Changming Zhao*, and Pinghua Liu*. Use of a tyrosine analog to modulate the two activities of a non-heme iron enzyme OvoA in ovothiol biosynthesis, cysteine oxidation versus oxidative C-S bond formation. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2018, 140(13):4604-4612.

 Patent:

6. Pinghua Liu, Heng Song, Wen Hu. ”Production of ergothioneine by metabolic engineering (WO 2014100752 A1)”, 2013

B. Positions and Honors

Positions and Employment

2014                              Founder of Ergo-Health LLC

2012- 2013                      Visiting scientist and acting chief scientific officer of Lamvac

2011- present                Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, Boston University, Boston, MA

2005 – 2011                   Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Boston University, Boston, MA

2001 – 2005                  Postdoctoral Research Associate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (with Professor JoAnne Stubbe)

Awards

2008- 2013                           NSF CAREER Award