Liqiang Pan

Liqiang Pan has been working on the activation mechanism of the TNFR superfamily (TNFRSF) and the development of multifunctional biopharmaceutics targeting TNFRSF for a long time.  

It has been generally accepted that receptor clustering on cell membranes plays an important role in the signaling of many immunoreceptors. Through systematic structural and functional investigation of the membrane anchor of the death receptor 5 (DR5), a member of TNFRSF, Liqiang and his collaborators made an unexpected finding that the transmembrane helix (TMH) of the receptor, although just a single helix, plays critical roles in the assembly of the signaling-competent trimer and clustering of the trimeric receptor complexes.  

He also independently validated this finding by demonstrating that the TMH clustering of DR5, when unrestrained by the receptor extracellular domain, can fully activate signaling even in the absence of ligand. Therefore, he proposed a novel model of DR5 signal transduction and pre-ligand autoinhibition, which is a breakthrough in the field of receptor signaling.  

Regarding the importance of TNFRSF members in cancer immunotherapy, his work provides new mechanistic insights that will help those who are developing new antibody therapeutics that specifically activate DR5 or other members of the TNFR superfamily for cancer treatment.

He further co-developed an evolutionary NAPPA technology for generating self-assembly multispecific antibodies, which could be applied to personalized cancer immunotherapy in the future. Liqiang, as scientific co-founder, has also co-founded a NAPPA technology-based biotech company Assembly medicine Inc., which has raised more than $10 million (more than100 million CNY) in two financing rounds from top investors in China.