Professor
Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences Department, School of Medicine
Co-Director, Cancer Chemical and Structural Biology, Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center
Director, Drug Discovery Core, FAMRI Center of Excellence at Johns Hopkins
Director, ChemCORE High-throughput Screening Facility, IBBS, School of Medicine
RESEARCH OVERVIEW
Our primary research interest lies at the interface between chemistry, biology, and medicine. We design and synthesize libraries of macrocycles inspired by bioactive natural products. We conduct cell- and target-based high-throughput screens of small molecule libraries including the Johns Hopkins Drug Library and natural products-inspired macrocycle libraries to identify modulators of various cellular processes and pathways that have been implicated in human diseases from cancer to autoimmune diseases. Once biologically active inhibitors are identified, they will serve both as probes of the biological processes of interest and as leads for the development of new drugs for the treatment of a variety of human diseases.
Among the biological processes of interest are cancer cell growth and apoptosis, angiogenesis, signal transduction, eukaryotic transcription and translation.
Selected Publications
Park H, Kam TI, Peng H, Chou SC, Mehrabani-Tabari AA, Song JJ, Yin X, Karuppagounder SS, Umanah GK, Rao AVS, Choi Y, Aggarwal A, Chang S, Kim H, Byun J, Liu JO, Dawson TM, Dawson VL. PAAN/MIF nuclease inhibition prevents neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease. Cell, 2022.
Guo Z, Hong SY, Wang J, Rehan S, Liu W, Peng H, Das M, Li W, Bhat S, Peiffer B, Ullman BR, Tse CM, Tarmakova Z, Schiene-Fischer C, Fischer G, Coe I, Paavilainen VO, Sun Z, Liu JO. Rapamycin-inspired macrocycles with new target specificity. Nature Chemistry, 2019.
Guo Z, Cheng Z, Wang J, Liu W, Peng H, Wang Y, Rao AVS, Li RJ, Ying X, Korangath P, Liberti MV, Li Y, Xie Y, Hong SY, Schiene-Fischer C, Fischer G, Locasale JW, Sukumar S, Zhu H, Liu JO. Discovery of a Potent GLUT Inhibitor from a Library of Rapafucins by Using 3D Microarrays. Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English), 2019.
Peiffer BJ, Qi L, Ahmadi AR, Wang Y, Guo Z, Peng H, Sun Z, Liu JO. Activation of BMP Signaling by FKBP12 Ligands Synergizes with Inhibition of CXCR4 to Accelerate Wound Healing. Cell Chemical Biololgy, 2019.
Li RJ, Xu J, Fu C, Zhang J, Zheng YG, Jia H, Liu JO. Regulation of mTORC1 by lysosomal calcium and calmodulin. Elife, 2016.
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