2017 GU XIAOCHENG LECTURE

顾孝诚讲座

The 2017 GU XIAOCHENG LECTURE is awarded to Dr. Pinglong Xu of Life Sciences Institute, Zhejiang University.

The Gu Xiaocheng lecture award was established by the Gu Xiaocheng Memorial Fund in 2012. The lectureship recognizes young investigators showing promises to become future leaders in life science research, especially those who work in China.

Dr. Pinglong Xu received his Bachelor of Science degree from Sichuan University, School of Medicine, in 1998, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Life Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2003. He later received postdoctoral training from Dr. Rik Derynck at University of California - San Francisco (UCSF) from 2004 to 2010, and later became a research faculty member in UCSF. During his tenure at UCSF, he made substantial contributions to the understanding of microenvironmental control of cancer metastasis behavior through the plasma membrane-associated ADAM metalloproteinases. Under the National 1000 Young Talents Program, he joined Life Sciences Institute (LSI), Zhejiang University as a Principal Investigator and Professor in 2013.

In LSI, Dr. Xu and his colleague initiated the investigation of the environmental and genetic control of cytosolic nucleic acid sensing, the long unresolved cellular process which is critical for defense against viral pathogens and avoidance for autoimmune disorders. In collaboration with Dr. Rik Derycnk, his lab elucidated the unanticipated function of innateantiviral immunity in Treg lymphocyte differentiation and cancer cell epithelial-mesenchymal transition. In 2016, Dr. Xu and colleagues discovered a novel mechanism for tightly controlling antiviral immunity via the regulation on transcriptional factor IRF3 by stress kinase Mst1. Recently, he published a seminal work for elucidating nutrient/contact-mediated control of host antiviral defense through the Hippo-YAP mechanism, which is a conceptional advancement in innate antiviral immunity and attracted tremendous attentions from fellow researchers.

Dr. Xu is praised as an exemplary scientist. His leadership in the investigation of environmental/genetic control of innate immunity is growing and he will make further contributions in future cross-disciplinary research of immunology and cell biology. He is invited to present his work in the 9th Ray Wu Symposium at Institute of Biophysics, CAS on October 14, 2017.