Dr Liu began his studies in biomedical science (molecular pharmacology and medicinal chemistry) in 2005 in New Zealand, before going on to do a Masters of Biomedical Science (bio-organic chemistry) in 2009 and then obtaining his PhD in 2012. His PhD and postdoctoral studies with Professor Richard Payne at the School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney focused on developing new peptide ligation technologies to efficiently prepare bioactive peptide libraries for cardiovascular drug discovery.
He then took on the position of postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University, USA and later at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. His postdoctoral research focused on hijacking endogenous lipid electrophile-signalling pathways for precision medicine development. The contribution of this work to anti-cancer research was recognised by Cornell University, and he was nominated by the University for the Blavatnik Award competition in 2018.
Dr Liu’s research is also recognised in the European chemical biology research community. He was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry Poster Prize for Research Excellence in chemical biology at the 2nd PSL Chemical Biology Symposium in Paris, France.
