2022 Wing Tat Lee Award Recipients Announced

Announcing six recipients of the 2022 Wing Tat Lee awards, funded to establish cooperative research programs between BUSM and Chinese universities (with a preference for Hong Kong).

Catherine E. Costello, PhD, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry, Physiology & Biophysics and Chemistry, and founding director of the Center for Biomedical Mass Spectrometry at BUSM, will use advanced analytical methods to collaborate with Huilin Li, PhD, and Yang Mao, PhD, both professors of pharmacy at Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou to, (1) investigate how variations in the amino acid sequences or in post-translational modifications of key proteins affect the efficiency of entry into host cells for variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and (2) determine how changes in the structure of a cell surface receptor may alter the course of chronic kidney disease.

Haiyan Gong, MD, PhD, professor of ophthalmology, anatomy & neurobiology, will collaborate with Chi-Wai Do, PhD, associate professor of optometry at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to study a potential new drug to treat glaucoma, Baicalein (5,6,7-trihydroxyflavone), which could increase fluid outflow within the eye to lower pressure and preserve vision.

Jingyan Han, PhD, assistant professor of vascular biology, and Weiye Song, PhD, professor of photonics at Shandong University, will develop a new optical coherence tomography-based photothrombosis imaging system to provide reproducible spatiotemporal information on thrombus growth in intact living animal models, facilitating the assessment of new therapeutic strategies for thrombotic events.

Nelson C. Lau, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry, and director of the BU Genome Science Institute, will collaborate with Dr. Feifei Yin, associate professor of biology at the Hainan Medical University to characterize virus small RNAs in mosquitoes and ticks from Southern China. This collaboration will build a new BUSM Tick Small RNA Genomics resource to complement the Mosquito Small RNA Genomics resource that the Lau lab has built in collaboration with NEIDL investigators.

Wendy Qiu, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology & experimental therapeutics, will collaborate with Dr. Hua Tian from Xiaman Medical College to characterize apolipoprotein E (ApoE) genotype, monomeric C-reactive protein (CRP) and CD31 for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). They will also use both Framingham Heart Study (FHS) data and mouse models to investigate if non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can modify this pathological process.

Huiping Zhang, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and medicine/biomedical genetics, will collaborate with Ying Liu, PhD, associate professor of genetics at Soochow University, to study the genetic mechanism of 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.DS), which is a disorder characterized by heart abnormalities, recurrent infections and distinctive facial features. They will use genome editing techniques to study the function of genes and genetic variants within the 22q11.2 deletion region. Functional genetic variants identified in this deletion region could be useful diagnostic biomarkers for 22q11.DS.

Congratulations!