Red blood cells are the most common cell type in the human body and it can be circulated to all tissues of our body. We have established a mature in vitro red blood cell regeneration culture technology, which uses patients’autologous peripheral blood to simulate erythroid differentiation culture in vitro. By expressing the functional proteins in erythroid progenitors and generating RBCs by in vitro culture, a large number of mature RBCs expressing functional proteins were obtained in vitro. Engineering red blood cells are novel drug carriers and have great potential to be applied into disease treatment, like rare diseases, cancer, autoimmune diseases, metabolic syndromes and virus infections.

The blood is rich in biomarkers, such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs), circulating free DNA (cfDNA), platelets, exosomes, etc., which have been widely used in the current liquid biopsy and early disease screening, but the mystery in blood is much more than that. Here, we defined a new biomarker in the blood, which is closely related to the individual’s DNA damage. Based on this, we have established a new type of disease early screening and individual health risk monitoring system, that have shown extremely high accuracy goes beyond standard clinical biomarkers.

Our long-term interest is to understand how stem/progenitor cell fates are determined via coordination of multiple cellular factors and environmental signals under normal and stressed conditions. Stem/progenitor cells can respond to extrinsic and intrinsic signaling cues, and decide whether to undergo self-renewal or a differentiation division. This decision plays a key role in tissue regeneration and maintaining tissue homeostasis. We have used genetic, cell biology, molecular biology and biochemical approaches to systematically analyze mechanisms by which cells integrate extrinsic and intrinsic signals to make developmental decisions.
In addition, by using single-cell RNA sequencing technology, we have dissected the heterogeneity within a cell population and discovered novel mechanisms underlying stem cell self-renewal. More importantly, building on our basic research, we have discovered several drugs that can retain or promote the self-renewal capacity of certain stem cells for therapeutic purposes.