Hung-Wen Liu
Hun-wen (Ben) Liu was born in Taiwan and graduated with a BS degree in chemistry from Tunghai University (Taichung) in 1974. After 2 years of military service, he began his graduate study at Columbia University where he carried out research under Professor Koji Nakanishi. His work on the additivity relation in exciton-split circular dichroism curves and its application in structural studies of oligosaccharides earned him a PhD in 1981. He then joined Professor Christopher Walsh’s group at MIT as a postdoctoral fellow and became involved in the field of mechanistic enzymology. In 1984, he became an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota. He was promoted through the ranks to be the Distinguished McKnight University Professor in 1999. In 2000, he moved to the University of Texas at Austin, where he now holds the George H. Hitchings Regents Chair in Drug Design and is Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, Chemistry, and Biochemistry. His research lies at the crossroads of biological and organic chemistry, with particular emphasis on enzyme reaction mechanisms, natural product biosynthesis, protein function regulation, enzyme inhibitor design and synthesis, and metabolic pathway engineering. His multifaceted approach in studying various bioorganic problems has been recognized by several awards, including the National Institutes of Health Research Career Development Award (1990), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences MERIT Award (1999), the American Chemical Society Carbohydrate Chemistry Division Horace S. Isbell Award (1993), the American Chemical Society Organic Chemistry Division Nakanishi Prize (2007), and the American Chemical Society Biological Chemistry Division Repligen Award in Chemistry of Biological Processes (2008). He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2005), the American Academy of Microbiology (2006), and the Academia Sinica (2008). He is an active member of a number of professional societies, and serves on many advisory boards, review panels, and editorial boards.
Affiliations and expertise
University of Texas at Austin, USA