Dr. Yu Zhou
Dr. Zhou received his Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Minzu University of China in 2014 and obtained Ph.D. degree in Chemical Genomics in 2019 from Peking University with Prof. Xiaoyu Li. His graduate research focused on DNA-encoded Chemical Libraries (DELs) and DNA-encoded Dynamic Chemical Libraries (DEDLs). In Jul. 2019, Dr. ZHOU joined Department of Chemistry, the University of Hong Kong as a Post-doctoral Fellow, primarily working on the optimization of DEDLs by applying psoralen for locking the equilibrium to largely increase the library scale. And from 2020, he has been working on the development of new generations of DEDLs by introducing protein templated reactions for locking the equilibrium to select linker and ligand simultaneously.
Dr. Yiran Huang
Dr. Huang received her B.S. degree in Chemical Biology from Peking University in 2015 and Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from University of Hong Kong with Dr. Xiaoyu Li in 2020. Her graduate research focused on target-specific labeling of membrane proteins and subsequent applications, including ligand discovery by DNA-encoded library selection, fluorescence-based on-cell ligand screening, cell surface protein detection, targeted drug delivery, programmed cell assembly, DNA-directed cell sorting. Besides, she also worked in detection of protein targets with a single binding epitope using DNA-templated photo-crosslinking and strand displacement. She was awarded with Postgraduate Student Scholarship during 2016-2020.
Jianfu Zhang
Jianfu Zhang received his B.S. degree from Xi'an Jiaotong University in 2012. He received his M.S. degree form HKUST in 2013. Then he joined Nano and Advanced Materials Institute (HK) as an research engineer, working on Bio and Healthcare related projects. In 2016, he joined Prof. Xiaoyu Li's research group and became a Ph.D. candidate of HKU. His research focused on DNA-based affinity probe, HDACs and associated proteins, photoaffinity labelling and protein–protein interactions.
Yuqing Deng
Yuqing Deng received her B.S. degree from Minzu University of China, and she is processing her PhD degree at the University of Hong Kong. In her undergraduate period, she was focused on study of natural products, especially polysaccharide. She performed Beijing college students' research and entrepreneurial action plan, which was studied on extraction, purification, and antimicrobial activity of polysaccharide in Astragalus membranaceus Fisch.Bge. From 2016 until now, she is focusing on the methodology of DNA encoded chemical libraries (DELs). With the exploration of new construction and selection tools for DELs, it provides a broader and more efficient way for ligand discovery and drug screening.
Jianzhao Peng
Jianzhao Peng received his B.S. degree from Southern University of Science and Technology of China and he joined HKU-SUSTech Joint Education Programme for PhD in 2016. His graduate research focused on small molecule probes and total synthesis of natural product. Out of lab, he likes watching movies and listening to music.
Yinan Song
Yinan Song received his bachelor degree in Chemical Biology from Xiamen University in 2017 and joined prof. Xiaoyu Li's group in HKU immediately after his graduation. His research interests include organic chemistry, protein labeling strategies and novel drug discovery systems based on DNA encoded library.
Ling Meng
Ling Meng received her Bachelor of Science degree from Shandong University in 2016. Her major was Biological Science. She took the scientific basic training of protein expression and antibody producing under the guidance of Prof. Wang Jinxing in 2014-2015 and had further training of gene mechanism study under the guidance of Prof. Gong Yaoqin in 2015-2016. She awarded an outstanding graduate student from Shandong University. In Sep. 2017, She joined Dr. Xiaoyu Li's group in Department of Chemistry, the University of Hong Kong as a Ph.D. candidate. Currently, she focuses on target identification study.
Chao Xie
Chao Xie studied in Macromolecular Materials and Engineering Major of School of Chemistry in Sun Yat-sen University from August 2014. In February 2016, she joined Prof. Xintao Shuai's group. Her undergraduate research focused on responsive micelle for cancer therapy. Under the guidance of Prof. Shuai, Miss Xie won Second Prize in the 7 th Guangdong Province Innovative Material Competition in December 2017 and received her Bachelor degree in Engineering in June 2018. In October 2018, Miss Xie joined Dr. Xiaoyu Li's group in Department of Chemistry, the University of Hong Kong as a Ph. D. candidate. She is currently studying DNA-encoded triangular library for drug discovery.
Wenyin Shen
Wenyin Shen is a PhD student in Dr. Xiaoyu Li's lab, University of Hong Kong (HKU) since 2019. Her research area here is on the DNA encoded dynamic libraries (DEDLs), which has been emerged in the past decade and become a powerful tool. It combines both of the advantages of traditional dynamic library and DNA encoding strategy so that it can be used for screening of high affinity ligands to protein target interest via in-situ ligand formation process. She was studying in Waseda University from 2014-2018 and got her bachelor degree there. In 2017, she did an internship in Shibata Lab in Waseda University and complete the research of Dehydrogenative N-H/C (sp3)-H coupling using Hypervalent Iodines with Dr. Kanyiva S. Kyalo and Professor Takanori Shibata.
Qingrong Li
Qingrong LI received his B. C degree from Guangzhou University in 2014 and MPhil degree from South China Normal University in 2017. In 2018, he got the offer of a joint PhD program from the University of Hong Kong and Southern University of Science and Technology. Now his research focuses on structural biology, by using X-ray crystallography and Cryo-EM to determine the tertiary structure of protein complex. In his projects, he tries to use these tools to solve the structure of potential targets of anti-cancer drugs, and explore the mechanism of the protein-ligand or -protein interaction in these complexes.
Fong Sang Lam
Fong Sang Lam received her BSc degree from the University of Hong Kong in 2019. She was majoring in Chemistry and minoring in Biochemistry. During her undergraduate study, she went to McGill University as an exchange student and participated the program of professional development in Chemistry provided by the University of Newcastle. She did her undergraduate research project in Dr Xiaoyu Li’s group about building DNA-encoded library containing millions of small molecules. After her graduate study, she pursued further study and joined this group in July 2019. She is currently focusing on DNA-encoded macrocycle library for drug discovery.
Yuhan Gui
Yuhan Gui obtained her Bachelor and Master's degree in pharmacy at Shenyang Pharmaceutical University in 2016 and 2019, respectively. During the Mphil's period, she participated in Joint Master Program to Research Center for Marine Drugs of Shanghai Jiao Tong University under Professor Houwen Lin's guidance for two years, where she focused on exploring the biological functions and drug discovery potential of marine natural products. She is presently a PhD student of biochemistry at Professor Xiaoyu Li's lab in the University of Hong Kong. Her current research interests involve DNA-encoded libraries in drug discovery, targeted therapeutics and imaging agents.
Cen Huang
Cen Huang received his B.S. degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Chongqing University in June 2020. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Chemical Biology at the University of Hong Kong, under the supervision of Dr. Xiaoyu Li.