Researchers
Title: Dr
First name: Ligong
Surname: Liu
Web Site: http://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/2167
E-mail: l.liu@imb.uq.edu.au
Background:
After formal education in organic and medicinal chemistry in China (Nankai Univ and Beijing Medical Univ), I came to Australia in 1994 to pursue a PhD with Professor Ron Warrener at Central Queensland Univ to study alkaloids. Following 2 years postdoctoral research investigating DNA bis-intercalators in Ron’s lab, I spend 9 years to explore carbohydrates and pseudo-sugars in both academic and industrial sectors (ANU, Alchemia and Progen Pharmaceuticals). My research generated one marketed drug, several drug candidates at varied stages of development and several patented drug discovery platforms. In late 2008, I joint Professor Fairlie’s group with an expectation to utilize IMB’s world-class infrastructure and expertise in both biological and medical sciences to further my interests in drug discovery and understanding of biology behind it.
Research Interests:
My previous research covered areas of steroids, alkaloids, pseudo-sugars and carbohydrates, which involved novel synthetic methodologies such as asymmetric synthesis, enzymatic transformation, microwave-assisted organic synthesis, solution and solid phase chemistry, and library production with a capacity of over 10k compounds based on Irory® platform. Currently my interests are developing small peptidic and non-peptidic ligands targeting GPCRs and enzymes such as proteases and HDACs, small molecular ligands targeting Major Histocompatibility Complex related protein (MR1) to regulate mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells immunity, carbohydrates and their influence on structures and functions of glycopeptides, novel therapeutics based on carbohydrate mimetics, and synthetic strategies for focused library production.
