On July 5, 2013, Prof. Pinghua Liu from Boston University, visited SCSIO and delivered an impressive speech entitled “Synthetic Biology: From Natural Product Biosynthetic Pathway Manipulation to the Creation of Conditional Knockout Animal Models”, under the deputy director Jianhua Ju’s invitation of CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology (LMB). Prof. Changsheng Zhang, Prof. Jianhua Ju, Prof. Yonghong Liu, Prof. Yunfeng Hu and other 40 faculties and students attended the lecture.

Prof. Pinghua Liu is principally engaged in the mechanistic studies of natural product biosynthesis, their production through synthetic biology, and the creation of conditional knockout models for biomedical applications. Prof. Liu vividly introduced his group’s three aspects progress: i) their most recent efforts on ergothioneine biosynthetic studies and the production through metabolic engineering; ii) their new research progress in studying the chemical basis of biologic clock and the roles in development and aging; iii) their success in using synthetic biology approaches to develop transgenic animal models that allow reversible and temporal control of gene functions.

The visit of Prof. Liu will further promote exchange and cooperation between SCSIO and Boston University in the field of marine natural product biosynthesis and their biomedical applications.