Faculty
DeanYouhai Chen, MB, Ph.D
Dr. Chen is the founding Dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and director of Cancer Immunology Research Center, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences. He received his M.B. and M.Sc. degrees from Shandong University in 1983 and 1986, respectively, and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Manitoba, Canada, in 1993. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in 1995. He was a Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, until 2020. His research interests include immunotherapy, gene therapy, cancer, immunity, and inflammation. He has authored more than 150 research articles (H factor 64; total citation >18000 until 2021), and chaired a number of academic and administrative committees at academic or pharmaceutical institutions. He is a recipient of the Colyton Prize for Autoimmune Research.
Contributions to Science：
1. Discovered and characterized regulatory T cells induced by mucosal antigens. While working in the laboratory of Dr. Howard Weiner at Harvard University, Dr. Chen discovered that mucosal antigens induced regulatory T cells that used transforming growth factor (TGF)-b to suppress autoimmune responses, and used conventional TCR to recognize antigens. This helped establish the current paradigm of regulatory T cell biology. It made a major impact on our understanding of immune tolerance in general. His original paper published in Science has been cited for more than 2300 times. Science 1994; 265:1237. Nature 1995; 376:177.
2. Discovered key roles of Rel/NF-kB family in tolerance and autoimmunity. While at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Chen’s laboratory published a series of original papers describing the critical roles of the Rel/NF-kB family in both autoimmunity and tolerance. They discovered that a novel NF-kBp50-based feedback loop controls immune tolerance; they reported a paradigm-shifting concept that a non-lineage-specific transcription factor can control T cell differentiation in a lineage-specific manner by orchestrating the formation of a lineage-specific “enhanceosome”. These discoveries helped advance our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of immune tolerance and autoimmunity, and led to the development of a c-Rel blocking drug that is being tested in preclinical trials for treating autoimmune diseases and cancer. Nature Immunology 2003; 4:255. Science 2007; 317:675. Immunity 2009; 31:932. Nature Immunology 2010; 11:141.
3. Discovered and characterized three members of the TIPE (TNF-a-induced Protein 8-like) family. By genomic profiling of inflamed nervous tissue, Dr. Chen’s laboratory discovered, in 2002, three novel members of the TIPE family. They have since crystallized two of them and generated mice deficient in all of them. They discovered that TIPE family plays essential roles in immune homeostasis, inflammation, and carcinogenesis; they found that TIPE family is the transfer proteins of lipid second messengers PIP2 and PIP3. These ground-breaking discoveries helped deepen our understanding of the molecular pathways shared by inflammation and cancer, and provided new therapeutic opportunities for treating inflammatory and neoplastic diseases. Cell 2008; 133:415. Cancer Cell 2014; 26:465. Nature Immunology 2017; 18:1353. Nature 2018; 560:382.
Research areas: Gene therapy, immunotherapy, inflammation, cancer, autoimmune diseases.
AcademiciansJohn R. Speakman, Ph.D
Dr. Speakman is a Chief Scientist at Center for Energy Metabolism and Reproduction of SIAT; Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2004); Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2008); Fellow of the Academy of Europe (2012). Fellow of the Royal Society (2018); CAS foreign member (2019); Fellow of the US National Academy (2020). Dr Speakman’s research interest is on the molecular basis of the regulation of food intake, energy expenditure and body composition. In particular he aims to understand the causes and consequences of the phenomenon of obesity.
Research areas: Metabolic studies of humans, model animals in captivity and wild animals.
AcademiciansHorst Vogel, Ph.D
Dr. Vogel is a Chief Scientist at Center for Computer-aided Drug Discovery of SIAT; An academician from the Swiss Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Inventors (NAI) from USA, he is also the recipient of the “Chinese Government Friendship Award” (2020), a member of China’s Overseas High-level Talent Program (Foreign Expert Program), and emeritus professor of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). Dr. Vogel is an expert in membrane protein biotechnology, specializing in membrane protein structure and functional research, and drug-testing biochip technology research. He uses artificial intelligence and new drug screening methods to improve the efficiency of modern drug development. Dr. Vogel invented a series of world-first biochip technologies, which systematically solved core problems in drug development and created single-molecule cell-tracking technology. His breakthrough contributions to the research and development of new drugs targeting membrane protein GPCRs include the first optical sensor chip for probing the activation of G protein coupled receptors; the first silicon chip for automated planar patch clamp measurements; pioneering the investigation of membrane proteins by single-molecule spectroscopy and imaging in reconstituted systems and living cells; the first high-resolution crystal structure of a mammalian Cys-loop ligand gated ion channel.
Research areas: Computer-aided drug discovery, GPCR biology.
Chair ProfessorsFan Pan, MB, Ph.D
Dr. Pan is a Chair Professor, Co-director of Center for Cancer Immunology, and Chair of the Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). After obtained his PhD degree from the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine in 1996, Dr. Pan pursued his postdoctoral fellowship training in several prestigious institutions including Beijing Medical University, University of California at Davis and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2001, and was promoted to associate professor in 2016 at its Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Pan is a renowned immunologist. He has been working in the tumor immunology field for more than 20 years, and contributed to this field significantly. His research interest focuses on elucidating the development, linkage stability and function of T cell subtypes, especially Regulatory T cells (Treg) and Th17 cells, two crucial cellular populations important for immune regulation and immune pathologies, respectively. He has published more than 50 papers and 10 review articles in prestigious journals, including Cell, Nature, Science, Immunity, Cancer Discovery, Nature Medicine, PNAS and Nature Review of Immunology. He also filed more than 5 patents.
Research areas: The molecular mechanisms governing the differentiation and function of CD4+ T cells; regulatory T cells (Treg) biology and its roles in the control of autoimmunity, tumor immunity, and infection diseases; novel therapeutics to treat cancer, autoimmune diseases and other inflammation-related diseases including metabolic disorders. To address these questions, the laboratory employs a wide range of experimental techniques including traditional biochemical and molecular biological analyses; genetic approaches including conventional and conditional gene targeting and transgenesis in mice; mass spectrometry; large scale gene expression analyses and bioinformatics.
Chair ProfessorsDi Chen, MB, Ph.D
Dr. Chen is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He received his M.B. degree at Tianjin Medical University (1982) and his Ph.D. degree at University of Louisville, US (1992). Before he joined SIAT, he worked at Rush University, Chicago during 2011-2019 as a tenured endowed professor (The John and Helen Watzek Professor of Biochemistry). He was a Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry (2011-2017) and a Section Director in the Section of Molecular Medicine in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery (2017-2019). He also served as a Co-Director in the Osteoarthritis Research Center at the Rush University. He is a member of American Society of Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR), Orthopedic Research Society (ORS), American College of Rheumatology (ACR), Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) and International Chinese Musculoskeletal Research Society (ICMRS). He was a member of ASBMR education committee (2007-2010) and a topic chair of ORS (2007-2010). He also served as a President of ICMRS (2005-2007). He has published 247 SCI papers with cumulative impact factor 1468, citations: >22500, and H-index: 74 (Google scholar citations; March, 2021). Some of his studies were published in high impact journals, including Science, Science Translational Medicine, Nature Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, Nature Communications and Arthritis & Rheumatology. As a principal investigator, he received over $12 million funding support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), US, including 6 R01 awards. He served as a panel member of NIH study sections more than 30 times in the past 15 years and served as a regular member of NIH SBSR study section (2009-2013). He also served as a panel member of NSFC study sections in China (2010, 2011, 2018, 2020). He received numerous awards, including NIH Independent Scientist Award (2006) and National Science and Technology Advancement Award, China (2015). Graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in his lab received 48 Young Investigator awards or Travel awards while working in his lab. He has served as an editorial board member for 12 bone and joint related scientific journals, including A&R, JBMR, JBC, AR&T OAC, and J Cell Biochem. He is currently serving as an associate editor of the Journal of Orthopedic Translation.
Research areas: Understanding the pathological mechanisms of and developing drugs for bone and joint diseases, such as osteoarthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and genetic bone diseases.
Xiaoli Li
xiaoli.li@siat.ac.cn
Tel: +86-755-86569441
