Jiandong Huang 黃建東

Professor Huang earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Fudan University, Shanghai and went to the United States through the CUSBEA* programme to pursue his doctoral study in transcriptional regulation during fruit fly embryonic pattern formation. He earned his PhD degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. Thereafter, Professor Huang received his postdoctoral training in mouse genetics at National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health in the US. During this period, Professor Huang was the first to report that the two major intracellular transportation systems of mammalian cells, the microtubule- and actin-filament-based system directly interact with each other through their motor proteins, kinesin and myosin. Later, he established his own laboratory at The University of Hong Kong. Professor Huang is now Chair Professor of Synthetic Biology and the L & T Charitable Foundation Professor in Biomedical Sciences in the School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Hong Kong.

Professor Huang’s current research focuses on two areas: synthetic biology and intracellular transportation. For intracellular transportation study, Professor Huang has focused on illustrating the functions of a microtubule-based motor molecular, Kinesin-1, in different cell types, aiming at understanding its roles in different cell types in development and disease. For synthetic biology, Professor Huang have created novel genetic circuits for the control of gene expression and hence biological behaviour. One successful example is the design and assembly with his colleagues of a genetic circuit for the spatiotemporal control of cell distribution and function. This new circuit was used to reveal how repetitive biological structure could be generated and how the number of repeats in biological structures can be controlled. Most recently, his team further engineered the interactions among multiple cell types to generate biological structures. The ability for spatiotemporal control of gene activities, cell-cell interactions, cell distribution and function is very useful for future preventive and therapeutic medicine, which Professor Huang is applying to vaccine development and cancer therapy.

*CUSBEA stands for ‘China–United States Biochemistry Examination and Application’.

黃建東教授在復旦大學獲得學士學位。 他之後通過中美生化聯合考試專案（CUSBEA），進入美國加州大學洛杉磯分校進行果蠅胚胎轉錄和生物圖形形成的研究，並獲得理學博士（PhD）學位。之後，黃教授在美國國家健康研究院（NIH）國立癌症研究所（NCI）接受了小鼠遺傳學博士後的訓練。 在這期間，黃博士在世界上首先發現並報告了哺乳細胞二個主要細胞內運輸系統間直接相互作用的方式，即這兩個系統是通過它們的馬達蛋白質，kinesin和肌球蛋白直接聯繫的。 隨後，黃教授在香港大學建立了他自己的實驗室。黃教授現在是香港大學生物醫學學院的合成生物學講座教授及慧賢慈善基金教授（生物醫學）。

黃教授目前的研究主要集中在兩個領域：合成生物學和細胞內運輸。在細胞內運輸研究中，黃教授著重於研究微管運動分子Kinesin-1在不同細胞類型中的功能，旨在瞭解其在發育和疾病中的作用。在合成生物學方面，黃教授為控制基因錶達和生物行為探索創造新的基因線路。一個成功的例子是設計和組裝一個基因線路成功的控制了細胞的時空分佈和功能。這種新線路可以用於揭示如何產生重複的生物結構，以及如何控制生物結構中的重複數目。最近，他的團隊進一步設計了多種細胞類型之間的相互作用，以生成生物結構。對基因活動、細胞-細胞相互作用、細胞分佈和功能進行時空控制的能力對於未來的預防和治療醫學非常有用。黃教授正將這些技術與方法用於疫苗開發和癌症治療研究。