Mingliang HE, 何明亮

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 Ageing: developing anti-ageing agents 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. Key word: molecular virology, anticancer, antiviral, signaling transduction, innate immune response, ageing

[2026] A Binary Catalytic System for Enantioselective Annulation of 3-Amino Oxetanes with Isocyanates Leading to Antiviral Chiral 2-Iminothiazolidines. Han, Z. (Co-first Author), Duan, M. (Co-first Author), Wan, Q., Chen, C., Yang, W., Lai, Z., Yu, P., Huang, H., He, M.-L., Houk, K. N. & Sun, J., 16 Jan 2026, In: ACS Catalysis. 16, 2, p. 1585–1593 9 p. RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal. [2026] Carbon Quantum Dots Assisted Virus Tracking: From Skin to Brain. Feng, Y., Wang, X., Chen, C., Wang, D., Hou, C., Wang, Y., Hu, H., Chen, P., Qin, L., Wan, Q., Yao, X. & He, M.-L., 27 Jan 2026, In: Advanced Materials. 38, 6, 12 p., 2508464. RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal. [2026] Challenges and beyond: Targeting hypoxia-inducible factors for anti-tumor immunity restoration. Leung, S.