Desheng Liang

Biography

Dr. Desheng Liang worked as Physician at North Guangdong People’s Hospital from 1984-2003 after receiving a Bachelor Degree in Medicine. He earned his Master Degree in Medicine and Ph.D. in Medical Genetics from the Central South University, Changsha, China in 2003 and 2006 respectively. Dr. Liang was recruited to the State Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics, Central South University as Associated Professor and Deputy Director in 2003 and Professor in 2006, and appointed director of the National Training Base for Talents in Life Science and Technology in 2006 and deputy director of the Prenatal Diagnosis Center of Xiangya Hospital in 2004. Dr. Liang worked as Invited Professor at the Nagasaki University School of Medicine, Japan from 2005.3-2008.3. He has been offered appointment of Guest Professor of Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, Japan since March of 2008, served as Executive Board Member of the East Asia Union of Human Genetics Societies since 2007 and Vice President of Hunan Society of Genetics since 2006. Dr. Liang is taking charge of the projects of Gene Therapy, Collection, Reservation and Sharing of Human Genetic Resources, and Clinical Genetics, as well as the National Training Base for Talents in Life Science and Technology. Since 2004, as Principle Investigator, he has directed 7 national scientific projects including the “973” and “863” project, received National Grade II Prize of Science and Technology Progress and published over 90 papers in well-known international journals such as Am J Med Genet, J Thromb Haemost, Nat Genet, J Hum Genet etc.

Research Interest

Gene Therapy----Development of a Human-Derived Gene Vector My group has developed a novel non-viral vector system, the human ribosomal DNA (hrDNA) targeting vector, which is the altered design of the “bi-satellite micro-chromosome” and “human-derived gene vector” systems initiated by Prof. Jiahui Xia. This novel delivery system is characterized by targeting the exogenous therapeutic genes to the rDNA locus of human cells at a high efficiency by homologous recombination and driving the production of proteins together with enriching the recombinants facilitated by the high transcription at the ribosomal DNA locus. Recently we constructed a range of hrDNA-targeting plasmids with various therapeutic genes and mainly focused on the gene therapy study for hemophilia and DMD. The final purpose of our project is to set up a new gene therapy strategy using this vector and auto-stem cell, which would be a breakthrough in human gene therapy.