1A-202, 2/F, Block 1, To Yuen Building
+852 3442-4492
+852 3442-0549
minglihe@cityu.edu.hk
CityU Scholars
Anticancer • Antiviral • Signal Transduction • Biomarker • Drug Development • Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) Stress • Innate Immune Response

Prof. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Sichuan University (Biochemistry) in 1988. He obtained his PhD degree from Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry (and Cell Biology) in 1995; completed his postdoctoral training in Roswell Park Cancer Institute at Buffalo (1995–1997) and Washington University School of Medicine at St. Louis in USA (1997–2000). He joined The University of Hong Kong as Research Assistant Professor in 2000, then appointed as Associate Professor at Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He joined Department of Biomedical Sciences at City University of Hong Kong in 2015.
Research Interests/AreasKeywordsAnticancer
Antiviral
Signaling Transduction
Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) Stress
Innate Immune Response
Research InterestsCancer Biology: Mechanisms of carcinogenesis (hepatocellular carcinoma, gastric cancer, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, colon cancer)
Virology: Mechanisms of human diseases caused by virus infection (Hepatitis B virus, enterovirus 71, influenza virus)
Drug Development: target-based or common antiviral/anticancer drugs
Common diseases such as cancers and infectious diseases are major challenges for public health and great economic burden of societies. There are approximately 15 million new cancer cases and 8 million cancer-related deaths annually with constant increasing numbers in the last decade. Every individual is affected by some pathogens from time to time in his/her life; and infectious Diseases caused by pathogen invasion kill at least 5 million people worldwide every year (http://www.who.int/mediacentre). Accompanied with economic globalization, infectious diseases spread rapidly from one place to other countries that may cause pandemic infections and high mortalities. Virus (such as hepatitis virus, Ebola virus, human immunodeficient virus, influenza virus, enterovirus) infections cause a variety of human infectious diseases and cancers. 2019-nCoV pandemic caused health disaster worldwide without either effective prevention or treatment means. It is urgently to put more effort to investigate the underlining mechanisms of these diseases and to develop effective therapeutic drugs. However, there is no common drug against these viruses. Research on cancer and virus would facilitate us to discover new biomarkers for early and accurate diagnosis, to identify new targets for drug development and to develop new prevention and therapeutic strategies.
Stress response is a common mechanism of cells upon internal and external stress stimuli including oxidative stress in tumors and virus invasion. Long term stress response would lead to varieties of physiological and pathological changes that contribute to many diseases. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is one of the major and fast responses of living cells to exogenous and endogenous insults. Recent studies have highlighted ER stress response because the unfolded protein response (UPR) by expanding its protein-folding capacity adapts to minimize the harmful effects of accumulated misfolded proteins under both physiological and pathological conditions, and therefore eliciting protective processes such as autophagy, antioxidant responses, innate immune response and inflammatory response. They are key processes not only for limiting and eradicating pathogen invasions, but for inducing cancers and other diseases as well. Severe ER stress elicits cell death to protect unreversed damage of organs in the body, while low levels of ER stress is beneficial to cells by stimulating UPR for cells adapt to subsequent lethal insults. Up to now, our knowledge on these complicated stress response networks remains very limited. We are trying to figure out how virus stimulates and regulates these stress response, to identify new diagnostic markers and drug targets. In addition, we are also interested in developing new drugs against viral infections and human cancers.
GrantsNational Basic Science Development Program of China (973)
National Science Foundation of China (NSFC)
General Research Fund (GRF) of HKSAR
Innovative Technology Fund (ITF) of HKSAR
Research Fund for Infectious Diseases (RFCID) of HKSAR
AIDS Trust Fund (HKSAR)
Fund of The Science Technology and Innovation Committee of Shenzhen Municipality
Position AvailabilityPostgraduate Students are welcome to join our research team. Scholarships are available, including Hong Kong PhD Fellowship, University Scholarship, and Interdisciplinary PhD Programme in Veterinary Medicine in collaboration with Cornell University. Interested candidates please send your CV and a summary of past research experience to Prof. He (email: minglihe@cityu.edu.hk).
Editor / Editorial MembershipSignal Transduction and Target Therapy (Nature Publishing Group, 2020–)
MedComm (Wiley, 2020–)
Genes & Diseases (Elsevier, 2020–)
American Journal of Cancer Research, USA (2011–)
Lab MembersPostdoctoral Fellow:
LI Huangcan
PhD Students:
CHEN Cien
CHEN Sheng
FENG Yaxiu
FALETI Oluwassijibomi Damala
LI Yichen
WAN Qianya
WANG Xiong
WANG Yiran
WU Mandi
Previous Lab Members
Prof. LI Zhi (Postdoctoral fellow, now Shann Xi Normal University)
LIANG Bing (Joint PhD student, Professor, Guangzhou Medical U)
LU Jiuan (Joint PhD student, Associate Professor, Nanfang Med U)
LIU Zheng (PhD student, now Associate Professor, Chinese Medical Institute, Tianjin)
DONG Qingming (PhD student, Senior Research Fellow, U Tennessee, USA)
Dr LV Xiaoming (Postdoc, Associate Professor, Nanfang Medical University)
DONG Liang (Postdoc, PI in Guangzhou Medical University)
Dr MEN Ruotin (PhD student; current position: faculty member in Sichuan University Huaxi Medical College)
JIANG Bingfu (Postdoc)
DONG Qi (Senior Research Assistant)
Dr DAN Xuelian (PhD student; current position: faculty member in Medical University)
ZHAO Jin (PhD student, now Professor, Shenzhen CDC)
LU Jing (PhD student, Associate Professor, Guangdong CDC)
YI Lina (PhD student, Associate Professor, Guangdong CDC)
HE Lai (PhD student, Director and CEO, Shenzhen).
SONG Dan (PhD student, graduated)
ZHOU Fanghang (PhD student, graduated)
FENG Zhuoying (PhD student, graduated)
Selected Publications (out of 144, *corresponding author)Zhou F, Wan Q, Chen S, Chen Y, Wang PH, Yao X*, He ML* Attenuating innate immunity and facilitating β-coronavirus infection by NSP1 of SARS-CoV-2 through specific redistributing hnRNP A2/B1 cellular localization. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy 2021, 6:371. doi:10.1038/s41392-021-00786-y
Li Z, Li Y, Li X, Wu M, He ML*, Sun J* Organocatalytic Asymmetric Formal Oxidative Coupling for the Construction of All-aryl Quaternary Stereocenters. Chemical Sciences 2021 July 29. doi:10.1039/disc03324g
Wang Z, Yi B, Wu M, Lv D, He ML*, Liu M*, Yao X* Bioinspired supramolecular slippery organogels for controlling pathogen spread by respiratory droplets. Advanced Functional Materials 2021 June 19. doi:10.1002/adfm8.202102888
Zhou F, Wan Q, Chen Y, He ML* PIM1 Kinase Facilitates Zika Virus Evasion by Suppressing Host Cells’ Natural Immunity. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy 2021 Jun 2; 6(1):207.
Feng Z, Zhou F, Tan M, Wang T, Chen Y, Xu W, Li B, Deng X*, Wang X*, He ML* Targeting m6A Modification Inhibits Herpes Virus 1 Infection. Genes & Diseases 2021 Feb 21, 8(4) . doi.org/10.1016/j.gendis.2021.02.004
Yang L, Peltier R, Zhang M, Song D, Huang H, Chen G, Chen Y, Zhou F, Hao Q, Bian L, He ML*, Wang Z*, Hu Y*, Sun H* Desuccinylation-Triggered Peptide Self-Assembly: Live Cell Imaging of SIRT5 Activity and Mitochondrial Activity Modulation Journal of the American Chemical Society Sep 29, 2020. doi: 10.1021/jacs.0c08463
Wan Q, Song D, He B, Li H, He ML* Stress proteins: the biological functions in virus infection, present and challenges for target-based antiviral drug development. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy 2020 July. doi:10.1038/s41392-020-00233-4
Li H, Feng Z, He ML* Lipid metabolism alteration contributes to and maintains the properties of cancer stem cells. Theranostics 2020 May 30; 10(16): 7053-7069.
Zhou F, Wan Q, Lu J, Chen Y, Lu G, He ML*. Pim1 Impacts Enterovirus A71 Replication and Represents a Potential Target in Antiviral Therapy. iScience 2019 Sep 27;19:715-727.
Li C, Huang L, Sun W, Chen Y, He ML*, Yue J*, Ballard H* Saikosaponin D suppresses enterovirus A71 infection by inhibiting autophagy. Signal Transduct Target Ther. 2019 Feb 22; 4:4.
Dan X, Wan Q, Yi L, Lu J, Jiao Y, Li H, Song D, Chen Y, Xu H, He ML*. Hsp27 Responds to and Facilitates Enterovirus A71 Replication by Enhancing Viral Internal Ribosome Entry Site-Mediated Translation. J Virol, 2019 Apr 17; 93(9). pii: e02322-18
Dong L, Dong Q, Chen Y, Li Y, Zhang B, Zhou F, Lyu X, Chen GG, Lai P, Kung HF, He ML* Novel HDAC5 interacting motifs of Tbx3 are essential for suppressing E-cadherin expression and promoting metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy Aug 2018, 3: 22.
Dong Q, Men R, Dan X, Chen Y, Li H, Chen G, Zee B, Wang MHT, He ML* Hsc70 regulates the IRES activity and serves as an antiviral target of enterovirus A71 infection. Antiviral Res. 2018 Feb;150:39-46. doi: 10.1016/j.antiviral.2017.11.020
Hu JJ, Song W, Zhang SD, …, He ML*, Fan H* HBx-upregulated lncRNA UCA1 promotes cell growth and tumorigenesis by recruiting EZH2 and repressing p27Kip1/CDK2 signaling Sci Rep.2016 Mar 24; 6:23521. doi: 10.1038/srep23521
He ML*, Luo XM, Lin MC, Kung HF (2012) MicroRNAs: potential diagnostic markers and therapeutic targets for EBV-associated nasopharyngeal carcinoma. BBA-reviews on Cancer 2012 Jan;1825(1):1-10.
Yi L, Lu J, Kung HF, He ML* The virology and developments towards control of human enterovirus 71. Crit. Rev. in Microbiol. 2011 37(4):313-27.
Zhang JF, He ML, Fu WM, et al. (2011) Primate-specific miRNA-637 Inhibits Tumorigenesis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma by disrupting Stat3 signaling. Hepatology 2011 Dec;54(6):2137-48.
Lu J, He ML*, Wang L, et al. (2011) MiR-26a inhibits cell growth and tumorigenesis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma through repression of EZH2. Cancer Research 71(1): 225-233.
Lu J, Li XP, Dong Q, Kung HF, He ML* (2010) TBX2 and TBX3, the special value for anticancer targets. BBA-reviews on Cancer 1806(2): 268-274.
Ma Y, Yu J, …, Cheng CHK, He ML* (2009) Glucose-Regulated Protein 78 Is an Intracellular Antiviral Factor against Hepatitis B Virus Molecular & Cellular Proteomics 8: 2582-2594.
Liang B#, He ML#, Chan CY, et al. (2009) The Use of Folate-PEG-grafted- hybranched-PEI Nonviral Vector for the Inhibition of Glioma Growth In The Rat. Biomaterials 30(23-24):4014-20.
Shen Z, Yang ZF, Gao Y, Li JC, Chen HX, Liu CC, Poon RT, Fan ST, Luk JM, Sze KH, Li TP, Gan RB, He ML, Kung HF, Lin MC. (2008) The Kringle 1 Domain of Hepatocyte Growth factor has antiangiogenic and antitumor Cell effects on Hepatocellular carcinoma. Cancer Research 68(2): 404-414.
He ML, Zheng B, Peng Y, Peiris JSM, Poon LLM, Yuen KY, Lin MC, Kung HF; Guan Y (2003)Inhibition of SARS-Associated Coronavirus Infection and Replication by RNA Interference. JAMA-J AM MED ASSOC 290: 2665-2666.
He ML*, Wu J, Chen Y, Lin MC, Lau GK, Kung HF (2002) A new and sensitive method for the quantification of HBV cccDNA by real-time PCR. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 295, 1102-1107.
He ML, Wen L, Campbell C, Wu J, Rao Y (1999) Transcription Repression by Xenopus ET and its human ortholog TBX3, a gene involved in ulnar-mammary syndrome. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 96, p10212-10217.
29 October 2021


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