Award-winning HIV scientist Shan Liang leaves US to join Chinese research institute
Tenured professor at WashU Medicine is at least third senior researcher to leave the US for Shenzhen medical research academy SMART
Award-winning HIV scientist Shan Liang, a tenured associate professor at the Washington University School of Medicine (WashU Medicine), has taken up a full-time role in Shenzhen, southern China’s tech and innovation hub.
He has joined the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation (SMART) as a senior researcher and will head its Institute of Human Immunology, according to an announcement on SMART’s official social media account on August 15.
Shan has dedicated himself to studying the mechanisms of immunobiology of HIV infection and developing strategies to combat the virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or Aids.
With the exception of a few bone-marrow transplant cases, nobody has been cured of HIV. “I am particularly interested in identifying unknown immune mechanisms to clear HIV,” Shan said in an interview in the US last year.
SMART hailed his studies as “having laid an important foundation for elucidating the immune mechanisms of HIV infection and developing functional cure strategies”.
“He has discovered new mechanisms by which HIV kills target cells, which is very important for the development of a new generation of drugs,” said Zhang Linqi, director of the Comprehensive Aids Research Centre at Tsinghua University.