Chenli Liu is Pengcheng Distinguished Professor and President of the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences; Founding Director of the State Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology and the National Industrial Innovation Center for Biomanufacturing (NIICB); and Chief Scientist and Chief Engineer of the Shenzhen Infrastructure for Synthetic Biology. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Hong Kong, and postdoctoral training at MCB, Harvard University. He started his lab at SIAT in 2014.
Liu lab is focused on bringing together concepts and approaches from synthetic biology together with quantitative biology. Current research interest includes synthesizing a cellular life from bottom up and engineering bacteria for solid tumor therapy. He initiated and spearheaded the development of the Shenzhen Infrastructure for Synthetic Biology and the China National Industrial Innovation Center for Biomanufacturing. He is the recipients of several prestigious awards, e.g. "Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Science and Technology Award", "C.C. Tan Life Science Innovation Award", "Agilent Thought Leader Award".
He was elected an Associate Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2026. He also serves as Co-chair of the Asian Synthetic Biology Association (ASBA), Country Ambassador for the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), Scientific Advisory Council Member of Applied and Environmental Microbiology (AEM) at ASM, Editor-in-Chief of Vita Synthesis, Executive Editor-in-Chief of Synthetic Biology Journal (Chinese), and Editorial Board Member of Vita, Molecular Systems Biology, and ACS Synthetic Biology. He is Executive Council Member of the Chinese Society of Biotechnology, Member of the Advisory Committee for the Department of Life Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and Member of the Committee on Basic Sciences, Frontier and Interdisciplinary Research within the Academic Committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He initiated the Synthetic Cell International Science Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences, co-launched the Synthetic Cell Global Summit and SynCell Asia Initiative, and co-founded the Global Biofoundry Alliance (GBA).
Research Areas
Synthetic Quantitative Microbiology
SynBio Tumor Therapy
Directed Evolution System
Chromosome Biology
Education
Ph.D. (Biochemistry): The University of Hong Kong, China, 2006-2011
Supervisor: Dr. Jian-Dong Huang (jdhuang@hku.hk)
M.Sc. B.Sc. (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology): Xiamen University, China, 1998-2005
Supervisor: Prof. Zongze Shao (shaozz@163.com)
Publications
Papers
1. Zhuojun Dai, Wataru Aoki, Pimchai Chaiyen, Matthew Wook Chang, Xixian Chen, Zibo Chen, Byung-Kwan Cho, Nan-Nan Deng, Shishen Du, Jee Loon Foo, Julius Fredens, Meifang Fu, Xiaojun Han, Tomohisa Hasunuma, Norikazu Ichihashi, Nurulfiza Mat Isa, Daisuke Kiga, Dong-Myung Kim, Jongmin Kim, Akihiko Kondo, Yuishin Kosaka, Kobkul Laoteng, Joongoo Lee, Jian Li, Junbai Li, Ming Li, Sierin Lim, Jianbo Liu, Xingguo Liu, Yuan Lu, Nan Luo, Tomoaki Matsuura, Wataru Mizunashi, Yan Qiao, Ahmad Bazli Ramzi, Sang Woo Seo, Yoshihiro Shimizu, Kwanwoo Shin, Liangfei Tian, Wanwipa Vongsangnak, Baojun Wang, Cheng-Cai Zhang, Xian-En Zhang, Guoping Zhao, Bo Zheng, Yaoqi Zhou & Chenli Liu*.A framework for building a synthetic cell from the SynCell Asia Initiative.Nature Biotechnology (2026)
2. Dengjin Li,Hai Zheng,Yang Bai,Zheng Zhang,Hao Cheng,Xiongliang Huang,Ting Wei,Arieh Zaritsky,Terence Hwa,Chenli Liu*.Extrusion-modulated DnaA activity oscillations coordinate DNA replication with biomass growtheLife 107214.1(2025)
3. Zhiguang Chang#, Xuan Guo#, Xuefei Li#, Yan Wang#, Zhongsheng Zang#, Siyu Pei, Weiqi Lu, Yang Li, Jian-Dong Huang, Yichuan Xiao*, Chenli Liu*.Bacterial immunotherapy leveraging IL-10R hysteresis for both phagocytosis evasion and tumor immunity revitalization.Cell 188:1-16 (2025)
4. Nan Luo, Guoping Zhao* & Chenli Liu*.Quantitative synthetic biology.Nature Reviews Bioengineering 911–913 (2024)
5. Qian'andong Cao , Wenqi Huang , Zheng Zhang , Pan Chu , Ting Wei , Hai Zheng*, Chenli Liu*.The Quantification of Bacterial Cell Size: Discrepancies Arise from Varied Quantification Methods.Life (Basel) 13(6):1246（2023）
6. Ting Wei# , Wangsheng Lai#, Qian Chen#, Yi Zhang#, Chenjian Sun, Xionglei He,Guoping Zhao, Xiongfei Fu,* & Chenli Liu*.Exploiting spatial dimensions to enable parallelized continuous directed evolutionMolecular Systems Biology e10934（2022）
7. Liu W#, Tokuyasu, A. T, Fu X*, Liu C*.The spatial organization of microbial communities during range expansionCurrent Opinion in Microbiology 63:109-116（2021）
8. Yang Li#, Yuqi Wang#, Xuefei Li*, Chenli Liu*.Hunting field: insights on distribution pattern of bacteria and immune cells in solid tumors.National Science Review 8: nwab023（2021）
9. Hai Zheng#, Yang Bai#, Meiling Jiang#, Taku A. Tokuyasu, Xiongliang Huang, Fajun Zhong, Yuqian Wu, Xiongfei Fu, Nancy Kleckner, Terence Hwa, Chenli Liu*.General quantitative relations linking cell growth and the cell cycle in Escherichia coli.Nature Microbiology 995-1001（2020）
10. Weirong Liu#, Jonas Cremer#, Dengjin Li, Terence Hwa*, Chenli Liu*.An evolutionarily stable strategy to colonize spatially extended habitats.Nature 664-668（2019）
11. Arieh Zaritsky*, Waldemar Vollmer, Jaan Männik, Chenli Liu.Does the nucleoid determine cell dimensions in Escherichia coli?Frontiers in Microbiology 10:1717（2019）
12. Zhiguang Chang#, Yue Shen#, Qi Lang#, Hai Zheng, Taku. Tokuyasu, Shuqiang Huang, Chenli Liu*.Microfluidic synchronizer using a synthetic nanoparticle-capped bacterium.ACS Synthetic Biology 962-967（2019）
13. Jinming Cui#, Guoqin Mai, zuowei wang, Quan Liu, Yan Zhou, Yingfei Ma*, Chenli Liu*.Metagenomic insights into a celluloserich niche reveal microbial cooperation in cellulose degradation.Frontiers in Microbiology 10 (618) : 1-12（2019）
14. Yuxuan Dong#, Zhengyang Zeng#, Lin Xia, Chenli Liu*.Bacterial anti-cancer therapy in the era of synthetic biology.Chinese Bulletin of Life Sciences 332-342（2019）
15. Jinming Cui#, Bingzhao Zhang#, Yingfei Ma, Xiongfei Fu#, Meng Wang, Chenli Liu*.Engineering Platforms for Synthetic Biology Research .Journal of the Chinese Academy of Sciences 33 (11) : 1249-1257 (2018)
16. Jingming Cui#, Liwei Wang, Zhiguang Chang, Zhongsheng Zang, Chenli Liu*.Progress of Synthetic Biology Research in Medical Applications.Academy of Sciences 1218-1226（2018）
17. Yingfei Ma*, Xiaoyan You, Guoqin Mai, Taku Tokuyasu, Chenli Liu*.A human gut phage catalog correlates the gut phageome with type 2 diabetes.Microbiome 6: 24（2018）
18. Jinming Cui#, Minfeng Xiao#, Mingzhu Liu, Zuowei Wang, Furong Liu, Hailin Meng, Honggang Zhang, Jinfang Yang, Deng Deng, Shuqiang Huang, Yingfei Ma*, Chenli Liu*.Coupling metagenomics with cultivation to select host-specific probiotic micro-organisms for subtropical aquaculture.Journal of Applied Microbiology 1274-1285 （2017）
19. Hailin Meng, Yingfei Ma, Guoqin Mai, Yong Wang* and Chenli Liu*.Construction of precise support vector machine based models for predicting promoter strength.Quantitative Biology 90-98（2017）
20. Lizhong Liu#, Yang Bai, Hai Zheng, Xiongfei Fu*, Chenli Liu*.Fundamental aspects of synthetic biology.Chinese journal of biotechnology 315-323（2017）
21. Hai Zheng, Po-Yi Ho, Meiling Jiang, Bin Tang, Weirong Liu, Dengjin Li, Xuefeng Yu, Nancy E. Kleckner, Ariel Amir*, Chenli Liu*.Interrogating the Escherichia coli cell cycle by cell dimension perturbations.PNAS 15000-15005（2016）
22. Bingzhao Zhang#, Wangsheng Lai and Chenli Liu*.Methodology and Philosophy of Synthetic Biology.SCIENTIA SINICA Vitae (Chinese) 909 - 914（2015）
23. Minfeng Xiao#, Bingzhao Zhang and Chenli Liu*.Synthetic Biology in Studying the Origin of Life, Evolution, and Structure-Function Relation.SCIENTIA SINICA Vitae (Chinese) 915-927（2015）
24. Honggang Zhang#, Xinzhi Li, Bingzhao Zhang and Chenli Liu*.Draft Genome Sequence of Acinetobacter sp. Strain YZS-X1-1, a Denitrifying Bacterium Isolated from Freshwater Pond Sludge in China.Genome Announcements 3:e01579-14（2015）
25. Chenli Liu#, Xiongfei Fu#, Lizhong Liu, Xiaojing Ren, Carlos K.L. Chau, Sihong Li, Lu Xiang, Hualing Zeng, Guanhua Chen, Lei-Han Tang, Peter Lenz, Xiaodong Cui, Wei Huang*, Terence Hwa* and Jian-Dong Huang*.Sequential establishment of stripe patterns in an expanding cell population.Science 238-241（2011）