Zhonglin Liu, Ph.D., has joined the University of Florida as an assistant professor jointly appointed in the Department of Chemistry at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology in Jupiter, Florida and the Department of Medicinal Chemistry in the UF College of Pharmacy in Gainesville.
Liu’s research focuses on the discovery of small molecules for human proteins, as well as the functional characterization of these proteins in physiological and disease contexts. He integrates chemical proteomic technologies, such as activity-based protein profiling with functional genomic technologies like CRISPR screening to discover novel therapies. His scholarly contributions include more than a dozen publications in journals such as Angewandte Chemie, the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Nature and Nature Chemical Biology.
Prior to joining UF, Liu was a staff scientist in the laboratory of Benjamin Cravatt, Ph.D., at The Scripps Research Institute. He began his postdoctoral training there in 2018 under the guidance of Keary Engle, Ph.D., before moving to Cravett’s lab in 2021. Liu earned his Ph.D. in 2017 under the mentorship of Chaozhong Li, Ph.D., at the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, CAS. His doctoral research focused on copper-catalyzed fluorination and trifluoromethylation of alkyl radicals.
Liu’s lab is based in Jupiter, Florida at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology.
The human genome has an estimated 30,000 protein-coding genes, but only about 15 percent of them can be readily targeted with medicines to treat diseases, due to structural or other challenges. This is a big reason why so many diseases remain untreatable. Liu is opening up untreatable diseases to possible new treatments by inventing new chemistry techniques.
The institute was founded in 2004 to carry out just this type of boundary-breaking research, blending innovative chemistry with leading edge biological research, for the benefit of patients awaiting better treatment options.