Morningside Professorship in Chemical Biology

Professor Xuechen Li is currently a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at The University of Hong Kong (HKU). As a graduate of Harvard University, he obtained his PhD in 2007, subsequently undertaking a joint postdoctoral research role at Columbia University and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center from 2007 to 2009. He then joined HKU Chemistry as an Assistant Professor in 2009, rising to the rank of Professor in 2018. In his current role, Professor Li serves as the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Science.

The research of Professor Li lies in the interface of chemistry and biology, spanning from ground-breaking synthetic method development to biological studies and drug discovery, with the ultimate aim to develop novel therapeutics. Professor Li is a world leading researcher in the field of protein precision chemical synthesis and modification. At HKU, he has spearheaded the development of several innovative methods to synthesise and modify biomolecules such as peptides, proteins, and glycans. These methods have unlocked new pathways for studying biomolecules' biology and medicinal chemistry, and have offered new opportunities to create biologics with novel functional activities. Among them, his Ser/Thr Ligation methodology, selected as the Cutting Edge of Chemistry by Thompson Reuters in 2013, is now globally recognised and employed. These innovative methods to synthesise and modify peptides/proteins open new avenues for studying the chemical biology and medicinal chemistry of peptides and proteins. They will provide new possibilities for synthesising biologics with new functional activities for a wide range of applications and in understanding the biology of such proteins. His laboratory has published over 140 papers and holds 20 patents, with successful development of peptide drugs currently in human clinical trials.

Professor Li's exceptional contributions to the field of chemical biology have earned him numerous accolades, including the Wuxi PharmaTech Life Science and Chemistry-Scholar Award (2013), the Outstanding Young Researcher Award (2014) by HKU, the Distinguished Faculty Award by the Chinese-American Chemistry & Chemical Biology Professor Association (CAPA) (2016), the Croucher Senior Research Fellowship (2017), the Outstanding Researcher Award by HKU (2018), the Rao Makineni Award by the American Peptide Society (2019), the Cathy Award by the Chinese Peptide Society (2020), and the Innovation Award by the Peptide Alliance of China (2023). He was also honoured with the Contribution Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry by the Chinese Chemical Society (2023) and the RGC Senior Research Fellow (2023). He was the chairman of the 18th Chinese International Peptide Symposium in 2024.