Depei Liu

Professor Depei Lui is a medical molecular biologist. He graduated from Peking Union Medical College with a Ph.D degree of biochemistry and molecular biology in 1986. During 1987-1990, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, San Francisco in the United States. Since 1992, he has been a professor and doctoral supervisor. He served as the president of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) and Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) during the year of 2001-2011, and vice president of Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) during the year of 2002-2010. He was elected the member of Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) in 1996, and the member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and the member of Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 2008. He has been the director of the State Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Biology of China since 2004, vice president of the Chinese Medical Association since 2010, the chairman of Division of Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, CSBMB (Chinese Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) since 2011. He is also the member of the eleventh and twelfth session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China. Professor Liu’s research expertise is gene regulation, gene therapy and molecular mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases. He studies the cis-elements, trans-factors, higher-order chromatin conformation and nuclear matrix-associated proteins in regulation of globin gene transcription. He investigates the methods to increase the gene expression of globin in anemic status and methods to increase efficiency of gene repair of mutated globin genes. He investigates the roles of calorie restriction and sirtuin gene family in metabolism and cardiovascular diseases. He has published more than 200 original research articles and invited reviews, which have been cited more than 4000 times.