Prof. HE Mingliang (何明亮)

Dr He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Sichuan University (Biochemistry). After graduation in 1988, he worked as an engineer in a pharmaceutical factory in Chongqin. He obtained his PhD degree from Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry (and Cell Biology) in 1995. He obtained his postdoctoral training in Roswell Park Cancer Institute at Buffalo (1995–1997) and Washington University School of Medicine at St. Louis in USA (1997–2000). He joined The University of Hong Kong (Institute of Molecular Biology) as Research Assistant Professor in 2000. After SARS outbreak in Hong Kong in 2003, He was appointed as Associate Professor (2005–2011) and Research Associate Professor (2011–2015, Policy Change) at Stanley Ho Center for Emerging Infectious Disease, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He joined Department of Biomedical Sciences at City University of Hong Kong in February 2015.

Keywords

• Anticancer
• Antiviral
• Signal Transduction
• Biomarker
• Drug Development
• Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) Stress
• Innate Immune Response

Research Interests

• Cancer Biology: Mechanisms of carcinogenesis (hepatocellular carcinoma, gastric cancer, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, colon cancer)
• Virology: Mechanisms of human diseases caused by virus infection (Hepatitis B virus, enterovirus 71, influenza virus)
• Drug development: target-based or common antiviral/anticancer drugs

Common diseases such as cancers and infectious diseases are major challenges for public health and great economic burden of societies. There are approximately 15 million new cancer cases and 8 million cancer-related deaths annually with constant increasing numbers in the last decade. Every individual is affected by some pathogens from time to time in his/her life; and infectious Diseases caused by pathogen invasion kill at least 5 million people worldwide every year (http://www.who.int/mediacentre). Accompanied with economic globalization, infectious diseases spread rapidly from one place to other countries that may cause pandemic infections and high mortalities. Virus (such as hepatitis virus, Ebola virus, human immunodeficient virus, influenza virus, enterovirus) infections cause a variety of human infectious diseases and cancers. However, there is no common drug against these viruses. Research on cancer and virus would facilitate us to discover new biomarkers for early and accurate diagnosis, to identify new targets for drug development and to develop new prevention strategies.

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is one of the major and fast responses of living cells to exogenous and endogenous insults. Recent studies have highlighted ER stress response because the unfolded protein response (UPR) by expanding its protein-folding capacity adapts to minimize the harmful effects of accumulated misfolded proteins under both physiological and pathological conditions, and therefore eliciting protective processes such as autophagy, antioxidant responses, innate immune response and inflammatory response. They are key processes not only for limiting and eradicating pathogen invasions, but for inducing cancers and other diseases as well. Severe ER stress elicits cell death to protect unreversed damage of organs in the body, while low levels of ER stress is beneficial to cells by stimulating UPR for cells adapt to subsequent lethal insults. Up to now, our knowledge on these complicated stress response networks remains very limited. We are trying to figure out how virus stimulates and regulates these stress response, to identify new diagnostic markers and drug targets. In addition, we are also interested in developing new drugs against viral infections and human cancers.

Lab Members

Principle Investigator (PI): Dr HE MIngliang
Postdoctoral Fellow: Dr DONG Liang 
Research Assistant: CHEN Ying Joy

PhD Students:
MEN Ruotin (CUHK)
DAN Xuelian
SONG Dan
LI Huang Can
ZHOU Fanghang

JIAO Yang

FENG Zhuoying

LI Yichen

Wan Qianya

 FALETI Oluwassijibomi Damala 

Previous student: 
AMRUTHUR RAMACHANDRA Sree Sachin

LI Huanan

Visitor: ZHENG Ying

• Scientific Reports, UK (Nature Publishing Group) 
• American Journal of Cancer Research, USA 
• Signal Transduction and Target Therapy
• MedCommun.
• Genes & Diseases

Key word: anticancer, antiviral, signaling transduction, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, innate immune response

• Inhibition of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication by RNA interference (US patent No. 7,067,249)
• Inhibition of SARS-associated coronavirus infection and replication by RNA interference (US patent No.7,129,223)
• Synthetic peptide targeting critical sites on the SARS-associated coronavirus spike protein responsible for viral infection and method of use there of (US Patent 7,491,489)
• 抗腫瘤的核酸與多肽及其應用 (中國專利號: 201010110980.2)