• Establishment, characterization and application of totipotent and pluripotent stem cells
• Hematopoiesis and immune cell functions
• Cancer cell killers and immunotherapies

Pengtao Liu is currently a professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Hong Kong. He graduated from Henan Normal University with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in biology, and obtained his Master of Sciences from Chinese Academy of Sciences and Institute of Genetics. Pengtao Liu received a Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, Texas, USA). Dr. Liu did his postdoc training at National Cancer Institute (Maryland, USA). Prior to joining The University of Hong Kong, Pengtao Liu was a Senior Group Leader and an affiliated faculty member at the Wellcome Trust-MRC Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge. Wellcome Trust, the EU and NIH funded researches in Liu lab.

Totipotent stem cells and pluripotent stem cells provide critical resources for studying human development and hold great promise for regenerative medicine. We are establishing stem cells with totipotency features from several mammalian species and characterising them using molecular and functional approaches including single cell genomics. The availability of these new stem cells opens up many exciting opportunities for fundamental researches and for biotechnology. We are particularly interested in differentiating the stem cells to functional cells such as immune cells in vitro and in vivo, and dissecting the molecular mechanisms.

Please directly email Professor Pengtao Liu (pliu88@hku.hk) for project details and opportunities

1. Yang, J., Ryan, D.J., Wang, W., Tsang, C-H., Lan, G., Masaki, H., Gao, X., Antunes, L., Yu, Y., Zhu, Z., Wang, J., Kolodziejczyk, A.A., Campos, L.S., Wang, W., Yang, F., Zhong, Z., Fu, B., Eckersley-Maslin, M.A., Woods, M., Tanaka, Y., Chen, X., Wilkinson, A.C., Bussell, J., White, J., Ramirez-Solis, R., Reik, W., Göttgens, B., Teichmann, S.A., Tam, P.P.L., Nakauchi, H., Zou, X., Lu, L., and Liu, P. (2017). Establishment in Culture of Mouse Expanded Potential Stem Cells. Nature DOI: 10.1038/nature24052
2. Yu, Y., Tsang, J.C., Wang, C., Clare, S., Wang, J., Chen, X., Brandt, C., Kane, L., Campos, L.S., Lu, L., Belz, G.T., McKenzie, A.N., Teichmann, S.A., Dougan, G., and Liu, P. (2016). Single-cell RNA-seq identifies a PD-1hi ILC progenitor and defines its development pathway. Nature 539, 102-106.
3. Khaled, W.T., Choon Lee, S., Stingl, J., Chen, X., Raza Ali, H., Rueda, O.M., Hadi, F., Wang, J., Yu, Y., Chin, S.F., Stratton, M., Futreal, A., Jenkins, N.A., Aparicio, S., Copeland, N.G., Watson, C.J., Caldas, C., and Liu, P. (2015). BCL11A is a triple-negative breast cancer gene with critical functions in stem and progenitor cells. Nat Commun 6, 5987.
4. Yu, Y., Wang, J., Khaled, W., Burke, S., Li, P., Chen, X., Yang, W., Jenkins, N.A., Copeland, N.G., Zhang, S., and Liu, P. (2012). Bcl11a is essential for lymphoid development and negatively regulates p53. The Journal of experimental medicine 209, 2467-2483.
5. Wang, W., Yang, J., Liu, H., Lu, D., Chen, X., Zenonos, Z., Campos, L.S., Rad, R., Guo, G., Zhang, S., Bradley, A., and Liu, P. (2011). Rapid and efficient reprogramming of somatic cells to induced pluripotent stem cells by retinoic acid receptor gamma and liver receptor homolog 1. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108, 18283-18288.
6. Li, P., Burke, S., Wang, J., Chen, X., Ortiz, M., Lee, S.C., Lu, D., Campos, L., Goulding, D., Ng, B.L., Dougan, G., Huntly, B., Gottgens, B., Jenkins, N.A., Copeland, N.G., Colucci, F., and Liu, P. (2010). Reprogramming of T cells to natural killer-like cells upon Bcl11b deletion. Science 329, 85-89.
7. Liu, P., Keller, J.R., Ortiz, M., Tessarollo, L., Rachel, R.A., Nakamura, T., Jenkins, N.A., and Copeland, N.G. (2003). Bcl11a is essential for normal lymphoid development. Nat Immunol 4, 525-532.
8. Liu, P., Jenkins, N.A., and Copeland, N.G. (2003). A highly efficient recombineering-based method for generating conditional knockout mutations. Genome Res 13, 476-484.
9. Liu, P., Jenkins, N.A., and Copeland, N.G. (2002). Efficient Cre-loxP-induced mitotic recombination in mouse embryonic stem cells. Nat Genet 30, 66-72.
10. Liu, P., Wakamiya, M., Shea, M.J., Albrecht, U., Behringer, R.R., and Bradley, A. (1999). Requirement for Wnt3 in vertebrate axis formation. Nat Genet 22, 361-365. (co-first author).