Research Interest

1. Developing novel analytical methods for studying drug interactions

• Develop and establish novel analytical methods based on MS, such as ESI-MS，MALDI-MS and ICP-MS, to study the interaction between antitumor compounds and biological targets.
• Develop and establish secondary ion mass spectrometric imaging method to study the cellular uptake, distribution and destination of anticancer drugs inside cells.

2. Development of new methods and a new system for in-situ liquid secondary ion mass spectrometry

• Develop new methology of in situ and real-time liquid secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) by interfacing SIMS with a high vacuum compatible microfluidic device;
• Application of in-situ liquid SIMS as an in-situ "molecular eye" to perform in-situ real-time analysis on various liquid surfaces or solid-liquid interfaces (electrode-electrolyte interface, heterogeneous catalytic reaction, bio-soft material interface such as cell membrane);
• Develop a new instrumental system of in-situ liquid SIMS with high-quality mass resolution and expand its application.

3. Research and development of multi-targeted anticancer drugs

• Design and synthesis multi-targeted metal complexes targeting both key signal transduction proteins and DNA;
• In vitro and in vivo screening and evaluation of metal-based anti-tumour compounds;
• The structure-activity study of metal-based anti-tumour compounds;
• The pharmacological, toxicological, pharmacokinetic and metabolic studies of metal-based anti-tumour drugs;

4. Chemical biology study based on multi-functional molecular probes

• Design and develop multi-functional small-molecular probes that can recognize both specific signal transduction proteins and DNA;
• Study the interaction between the multi-functional molecular probes and the biological targets to explore the cellular signalling pathways and networks;
• Study the interactions between the multi-functional molecular probes and receptors and their regulation to the signal transduction network to discover and pharmacologically valuable and clinically promising lead compounds.
• Applying the multi-functional molecular probes to screen and identify biomarkers and drugable targets;

Current Research Projects

• 2020.1 – 2024.12, NSFC National Major Research Project on Scientific Instruments:High resolution in situ liquid SIMS system (21927804),8 million CNY 
• 2016.1 – 2019.12, NSFC General Project: Methodology for investigations on the molecular mechanisms of metal antitumor drugs on the basis of chemical genetics (21575145), 0.78 million CNY