Rate My Professor Zheng Liu

Zheng Liu is a Research Professor at the Cryo-Electron Microscopy Center of Southern University of Science and Technology, with a dual appointment as Research Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the School of Medicine. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biological science and technology from Tsinghua University in 1993, along with a second Bachelor’s degree in enterprise management. He completed his Ph.D. in biophysics at Tsinghua University in 1997 under the supervision of Academician Sui Senfang. From 1997 to 2001, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health, working with Terence Wagenknecht and Nobel laureate Joachim Frank. He progressed through roles as assistant research scientist, research scientist, and independent principal investigator at the Wadsworth Center until 2019. Between 2014 and 2020, he held concurrent positions at Tongji University, including associate director of the Pan-vascular Disease Institute and the Cardio-Pulmonary Vascular Disease Institute, as well as professor and doctoral supervisor. Since 2020, he has served at SUSTech while maintaining memberships in professional organizations such as the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Heart Association, and various Chinese societies in electron microscopy and biophysics. His research focuses on three-dimensional cryo-electron tomography and reconstruction of tissues and cells, structural analysis of proteins, macromolecular complexes, and viruses, and the structural biology mechanisms underlying cardiovascular diseases. He has led multiple NIH-funded projects in the United States and National Natural Science Foundation of China grants, published numerous peer-reviewed papers including in high-impact journals such as Nature, Cell Discovery, and Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, and contributed to books on ryanodine receptor structure. Liu has received awards including the National Education Commission Science and Technology Progress prizes and serves on editorial boards and professional committees.