Dr. Hung Wen Liu

Biography

Hung-wen (Ben) Liu is a Professor at the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin, holding the George H. Hitchings Regents Chair in Drug Design. His research primarily focuses on the intersection of chemistry and biology, particularly in elucidating the mechanisms of novel enzymatic reactions. The lab is engaged in diverse areas such as enzyme mechanism inhibitor design, metabolic pathway engineering, and regulation of protein function. Liu's work on enzyme mechanisms addresses essential biological processes like bacterial cell wall formation and lipid metabolism, where significant efforts are devoted to synthesizing mechanistic probes and specific inhibitors for biological catalysts. His research aims to engineer microbial biosynthetic pathways to produce bioactive compounds with designed glycosylation. Liu's innovative research integrates combinatorial biosynthesis, advancing the development of drugs with improved biological activity. Furthermore, his study on poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase emphasizes the importance of posttranslational modifications in cellular functions, particularly in response to DNA damage. Liu's group is dedicated to understanding biological transformations through chemical methodologies, addressing significant biomedical challenges.

Research Interests