Principal Scienist II

• Sep 2019 - Present

1) In the past three years, serve as CP rep in the below clinical programs but not limited: KJX839A, LEE011A, BYL719C, DRB436ECN01, WNT974X, JDQ443A&B, MBG453D, RAD001Y, ABL001 et al. 2) Major (3 NDA submission, 2 NDA approval) 3) Minor (8 CTA submission and/or 8 approval, 7 FIR/CSR, 1 CFDI on-site inspection, 1 IB, 2 EI) 1) In the past three years, serve as CP rep in the below clinical programs but not limited: KJX839A, LEE011A, BYL719C, DRB436ECN01, WNT974X, JDQ443A&B, MBG453D, RAD001Y, ABL001 et al. 2) Major (3 NDA submission, 2 NDA approval) 3) Minor (8 CTA submission and/or 8 approval, 7 FIR/CSR, 1 CFDI on-site inspection, 1 IB, 2 EI)

DMPK Expert

• Jul 2019 - Sep 2019

• Polish Clinical Trial Proposals to CDE and coordinate the outsourcing bioanalysis for the biosamples from the clinical trials. • Polish Clinical Trial Proposals to CDE and coordinate the outsourcing bioanalysis for the biosamples from the clinical trials.

Associate Professor

• Aug 2015 - Jul 2019

My research is focused on research and development of prostate cancer and Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) therapeutic strategies. Androgen deprivation therapy for advanced prostate cancer is based on androgen ablation or blockade of the androgen receptor (AR). Despite initial remission with such strategy, the development of the castration-resistant prostate cancer becomes inevitable in a majority of the cases. A key to successful therapy is to identify the critical nodes in the progression of castration-resistant prostate cancer and to target them to reverse cancer phenotypes by disrupting their interaction with AR and inducing apoptosis, senescence or postponing the malignance. I have discovered a natural prenylflavonoid icaritin as a new class of antiandrogen compound that have therapeutic potential in castration-resistant prostate cancer (carcinogenesis 2015&2016). Hepatitis B virus is one of the most threatening infectious diseases worldwide. The currently approved medications are non-curative, and frequently lead to the development of resistances. Alternative strategic therapies that target the key biomarkers of the HBV replication cycle are in demand to improve the treatment outcome. We are leveraging various technologies to understand the fundamental question how the HBV specifically invades the human liver cells via hijacking the sodium taurocholate co-transproting polypeptide (NCTP)-mediated endocytosis. We are also developing novel acylated peptide approaches that competitively occupy the entry receptors, leading to interventions of key endocytosis pathways. Show less

Team Leader in Pharmacokinetics group (Parttime)

• Oct 2015 - May 2018

ZheJiang Paloalto Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (PLAT) was co-founded in 2014 by Professor H. Eric Xu and Dr. David Xi, experts of ‘Thousand Talents Program’ in China and ZheJiang Province, respectively. This company aims to discover and develop the Innovative drugs with the independent intellectual property rights, which covers, but is not limited to, Hepatitis B virus (HBV), Hepatitis C virus (HCV), cancer and metabolic disorders. I joined in PLAT as a part-time staff in 2015. Firstly, I took charge of design and construction of a SPF Experimental Animal Holding Center and a Pharmacokinetics (PK) Team. Retrospectively, my team usually fulfilled three standard PK experiments per week for preliminarily predicting chemical’s druggability in the past year. Those studies consist of oral/intranasal/pulmonary bioavailability, tissue distribution, interspecies metabolism and excretion. Coupled with the efforts of other groups, two hepDirect and cyclophosphamide prodrugs (tenofovir and monophosph-sofosbuvir), were found to profoundly and dynamically enhance active components’ distribution ratio of liver to kidney from hundreds of patentable chemical candidates. This finding indicates that two prodrugs tend to remarkably reduce nephrotoxicity but not weaken the therapeutic efficacy as compared to their clinical counterparts (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and sofosbuvir). Our efforts have successfully moved those two chemicals forward to preclinical investigational new drug (IND) process. By virtue of those achievements, PLAT won the second prize of the 2016 ZheJiang SME Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition Finals. Recently, to ameliorate poor oral bioavailability of insoluble/impermeable Chemicals, my team is fabricating a nanoscale drug delivery system including microemulsion, liposomes and PLGA/solid lipid nanoparticles. Very soon, a microemulsion would carry an insoluble and NS5A-targeting chemical onto the preclinical IND process. Show less

Post-doctor research fellow

• Sep 2011 - Aug 2015

A novel prostate cancer therapeutic strategy using icaritin • In clinically relevant murine models orthotopically implanted with castration-resistant prostate cancer cells, it was found that icaritin could induce cancer cell growth suppression through triggering the degradation of both AR and ARvs in a ubiquitin-proteasomal pathway (3). • Icaritin suppresses development of neuroendocrine differentiation of prostate cancer through inhibition of IL-6/Stat3 and Aurora kinase A pathways in the male transgenic adenocarcinoma of the mouse prostate model (TRAMP) (1). • Singapore NMRC Research fund (NMRC/BnB/0007/2013) was drafted and won based on this project. Show less

Quality Control Engineer

• Jul 1998 - Jul 2001