Prof. Honglin Li
Director, Innovation Center for AI and Drug Discovery, East China Normal University
Prof. Honglin Li received his bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering and, and PhD degree in engineering mechanics at Dalian University of Technology in 2000 and 2005, respectively. As a post-doctor, he studied at Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica from July 2005 to May 2008. Since March 2008, he worked at School of Pharmacy in East China University of Science & Technology as a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Computational Chemistry. The major academic rewards he has received includes: the 13th Science and Technology Award for Chinese Youth (2013), National Youth Science and technology innovation leader (2015), “Ten Thousand Talent Program” Leading scientist (2017), National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (2018).
For addressing bottlenecks in current drug design methods, Dr. Honglin Li devotes himself to developing novel computational tools, which are well validated in web lab, to rationalize and improve the efficiency, speed and cost-effectiveness of the drug discovery process. He has made some innovative achievements by combining dry/wet research approaches in drug design, drug interaction mechanism investigation and target identification. He developed several in silico target identification and drug design methods, and obtained a series of novel lead compounds during the validation of those methodologies against various targets of diseases such as malaria, T2DM and cancer. After structural optimization with his special expertise and experience in drug design, some modified leads have entered pre-clinical studies. Presently, he has published more than 130 papers on PNAS, Nucl. Acids Res., J. Med. Chem. and J. Chem. Inf. Model. etc, participated in the compilation of five monographs, and applied for more than 60 patents with 30 being granted.
Education & Work Experience
1996.09 ~ 2000.07Bachelor, Dalian University of Technology;
2000.09 ~ 2002.07Master, Dalian University of Technology;
2002.09 ~ 2005.07Ph.D., Dalian University of Technology;
2005.07 ~ 2008.05Postdoctoral Fellow, Shanghai Institure of Metaria and Medica, Chinese Academic of Science, under the direction of Prof. Hualiang Jiang;
2008.05 ~ PresentProfessor& PhD Supervisor, East China University of Science and Technology;
2009.03 ~ 2009.06Visiting Scholar, University of Minnesota;
2011.12 ~ 2015.04Deputy Director, Shanghai Key Laboratory of New Drug Design
2015.05 ~ PresentDirector, Shanghai Key Laboratory of New Drug Design
2022.03 ~ PresentDirector, Innovation Center for AI and Drug Discovery, East China Normal University
Research Interests
1. Methodologies development of drug design, computational biology and cheminformatics
2. Development of methods for in silico target identification and poly pharmacology
3. Application of drug discovery programs to discover novel lead compounds against various targets of diseases, such as malaria and cancer
4. Identification and experimental validation for binding targets of natural products
5. Lead optimization combining computational and experimental methods
6. Drug-Target interaction mechanism with computational and structural biology
Representative Publications
1. Minghui Tang, Xin Duan, Anqi Yang, Shijie He, Yajing Zhou, Yuxin Liu, Lu Zhang, Xuan Luo, Peng Shi*, Honglin Li*, Xudong Lin*. Fish Capsules: A System for High-Throughput Screening of Combinatorial Drugs. Adv. Sci., 2022. 9(9) : 2104449
2. Mingyang Wang, Huiyong Sun, Jike Wang, Jinping Pang, Xin Chai, Lei Xu, Honglin Li*, Dongsheng Cao*, Tingjun Hou*. Comprehensive assessment of deep generative architectures for de novo drug design. Briefings Bioinf., 2022. 23(1) : bbab544
3. Rui Xiong, Leike Zhang, Shiliang Li, Yuan Sun, Minyi Ding, Yong Wang, Yongliang Zhao, Yan Wu, Weijuan Shang, Xiaming Jiang, Jiwei Shan, Zihao Shen, Yi Tong, Liuxin Xu, Yu Chen, Yingle Liu, Gang Zou, Dimitri Lavillete, Zhenjiang Zhao, Rui Wang, Lili Zhu, Gengfu Xiao, Ke Lan, Honglin Li*, Ke Xu*. Novel and potent inhibitors targeting DHODH are broad-spectrum antivirals against RNA viruses including newly-emerged coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Protein & Cell, 2020. 11 : 723–739
4. Shiliang Li, Chun Qin, Shichao Cui, Hongling Xu, Fangshu Wu, Jiawei Wang, Mingbo Su, Xiaoyu Fang, Dan Li, Qian Jiao, Ming Zhang, Chunmei Xia, Lili Zhu, Rui Wang, Jia Li, Hualiang Jiang, Zhenjiang Zhao, Jing-Ya Li, Honglin Li. Discovery of a Natural-Product-Derived Preclinical Candidate for Once-Weekly Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes. J. Med. Chem., 2019. 62(5) : 2348-2361
5. Gaoqi He, Yiping Song, Wenhao Wei, Xia Wang, Xingjian Lu*, Honglin Li*. eSHAFTS: Integrated and graphical drug design software based on 3D molecular similarity. J. Comput. Chem., 2019. 40 : 826-838
6. Fang Bai, Kangdong Liu, Huiliang Li, Jiawei Wang, Junsheng Zhu, Pei Hao, Lili Zhu, Shoude Zhang, Lei Shan, Weiya Ma Ann M. Bode, Weidong Zhang*, Honglin Li*, Zigang Dong*. Veratramine modulates AP-1-dependent gene transcription by directly binding to programmable DNA. Nucleic Acids Res., 2018. 46(2) : 546-55
7. Xia Wang, Yihang Shen, Shiwei Wang, Shiliang Li, Weilin Zhang, Xiaofeng Liu, Luhua Lai, Jianfeng Pei*, Honglin Li*. PharmMapper 2017 update: a web server for potential drug target identification with a comprehensive target pharmacophore database. Nucleic Acids Res., 2017. 45 : W356-W360
8. Guozhen Wu, Lili Zhu, Xing Yuan, Hao chen, Rui Xiong, Shoude Zhang, Hao Cheng, Yunheng Shen, Huazhang An, Tiejun Li, Honglin Li*, Weidong Zhang*. Britanin ameliorates cerebral ischemia–reperfusion injury by inducing the Nrf2 protective pathway. Antioxid. Redox Signal., 2017. 27(11) : 754-768
9. Shiliang Li, Hongling Xu, Shichao Cui, Fangshu Wu, et. al. Discovery and Rational Design of Natural Product-Derived 2-phenyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-benzo[f]chromen-3-amine Analogs as Novel and Potent Dipeptidyl Peptidase-4 (DPP-4) Inhibitors for the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes. J. Med. Chem., 2016. 59 : 6772-6790
10. Yongjia Hao, Xia Wang, Tao Zhang, et.al. Discovery and Structural Optimization of N5-Substituted 6,7-dioxo-6,7-dihydropteridines as Potent and Selective Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) Inhibitors Against L858R/T790M Resistance Mutation. J. Med. Chem., 2016. 59 : 7111-7124
11. Deheng Sun, Yu Yang, Jiankun Lyu, Wei Zhou, Wenlin Song, Zhenjiang Zhao, Zhuo Chen*, Yufang Xu*, Honglin Li*. Discovery and Rational Design of Pteridin-7(8H)-one-Based Inhibitors Targeting FMS-like Tyrosine Kinase 3 (FLT3) and Its Mutants. J. Med. Chem., 2016. 59 : 6187-6200
12. Fang Bai, Sha Liao, Junfeng Gu, Hualiang Jiang, Xicheng Wang, and Honglin Li*. An Accurate Metalloprotein-Specific Scoring Function and Molecular Docking Program Devised by a Dynamic Sampling and Iteration Optimization Strategy. J. Chem. Inf. Model., 2015. 55 : 833-847
13. Junsheng Zhu, Le Han, Yanyan Diao, Xiaoli Ren, Minghao Xu, Liu-Xin Xu, Shiliang li, Qiang Li, Dong Dong, Jin Huang, Xiaofeng Liu, Zhenjiang zhao, Rui Wang, Lili Zhu*, Yufang Xu, Xuhong Qian*, and Honglin Li*. Design, Synthesis, X-ray Crystallographic Analysis, and Biological Evaluation of Thiazole-Derivatives as Potent and Selective Inhibitors of Human Dihydroorotate Dehydrogenase. J. Med. Chem., 2015, 58(3), 1123-1139
14. Fang Bai, Yechun Xu, Jing Chen, Qiufeng Liu, Junfeng Gu, Xicheng Wang, Jianpeng Ma, Honglin Li*, José N. Onuchic*, and Hualiang Jiang*. Free energy landscape for binding process of Huperzine A to acetylcholinesterase. PNAS. 2013, 110(11) : 4273-4278.
15. Wei Zhou, Xiaofeng Liu, Zhengchao Tu, Lianwen Zhang, Xin Ku, Fang Bai, zhenjiang zhao, Yufang Xu*, Ke Ding*, and Honglin Li*. Discovery of pteridin-7(8H)-one-based Irreversible Inhibitors targeting Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) Kinase T790M/L858R mutant. J. Med. Chem., 2013, 56, 7821−7837.
16. Minghao Xu, Junsheng Zhu, Yanyan Diao, Hongchang Zhou, Xiaoli Ren, Deheng Sun, Jin Huang, Dongmei Han, Zhenjiang Zhao, Lili Zhu*, Yufang Xu*, Honglin Li*. Novel Selective and Potent Inhibitors of Malaria Parasite Dihydroorotate Dehydrogenase: Discovery and Optimization of Dihydrothiophenone Derivatives. J. Med. Chem., 2013, 56, 7911−7924.
17. Yanyan Diao, Weiqiang Lu, Huangtao Jin, Junsheng Zhu, Le Han, Minghao Xu, Rui Gao, Xu Shen, Zhenjiang Zhao, Xiaofeng Liu, Yufang Xu, Jin Huang, and Honglin Li*. Discovery of Diverse Human Dihydroorotate Dehydrogenase Inhibitors as Immunosuppressive Agents by Structure-Based Virtual Screening. J. Med. Chem., 2012, 55, 8341−8349.
18. Xiaofeng Liu, Hualiang Jiang, Honglin Li*. SHAFTS: A Hybrid Approach for 3D Molecular Similarity Calculation. 1. Method and Assessment of Virtual Screening. J. Chem. Inf. Model., 2011, 51 (9), 2372–2385.
19. Weiqiang Lu, Xiaofeng Liu, Xianwen Cao, Mengzhu Xue, Kangdong Liu*, Zhenjiang Zhao, Xu Shen, Hualiang Jiang, Yufang Xu, Jin Huang*, and Honglin Li*. SHAFTS: A Hybrid Approach for 3D Molecular Similarity Calculation. 2. Prospective Case Study in the Discovery of Diverse p90 Ribosomal S6 Protein Kinase 2 Inhibitors to Suppress Cell Migration. J. Med. Chem., 2011, 54, 3564–3574.
20. Jing Deng, Enguang Feng, Sheng Ma, Yan Zhang, Xiaofeng Liu, Honglin Li*, Huang Huang, Jin Zhu, Weiliang Zhu, Xu Shen, Liyan Miao*, Hong Liu, Hualiang Jiang, and Jian Li*. Design and Synthesis of Small Molecule RhoA Inhibitors: A New Promising Therapy for Cardiovascular Diseases? J. Med. Chem., 2011, 54(13), 4508-4522.
21. Li Liu, Xiaofeng Liu, Jiayu Gong, Hualiang Jiang, and Honglin Li*. Accelerating All-Atom Normal Mode Analysis with Graphics Processing Unit. J. Chem. Theory Comput., 2011, 7 (6), 1595-1603.
22. Xiaofeng Liu, Sisheng Ouyang, Biao Yu, Yabo Liu, Kai Huang, Jiayu Gong, Siyuan Zheng, Zhihua Li, Honglin Li*, Hualiang Jiang. PharmMapper server: a web server for potential drug target identification using pharmacophore mapping approach. Nucl. Acids Res. 2010, 38: W609–W614.
23. Xiaofeng Liu, Hua Xie*, Cheng Luo, Linjiang Tong, Yi Wang, Ting Peng, Jian Ding, Hualiang Jiang and Honglin Li*. Discovery and SAR of Thiazolidine-2,4-dione Analogues as Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 Receptor (IGF-1R) Inhibitors via Hierarchical Virtual Screening. J. Med. Chem. 2010, 53 (6): 2661–2665.
24. Honglin Li, Jin Huang, Lili Chen, Jin Zhu, Xu Shen, Jian Li, Rolf Hilgenfeld, Hualiang Jiang. Identification of Novel Falcipain-2 Inhibitors as Potential Antimalarial Agents through Structure-Based Virtual Screening. J. Med. Chem. 2009, 52, 4936–4940.
25. Honglin Li, Zhenting. Gao, Ling, Kang, Hailei Zhang, Kun Yang, Xiaomin Luo, Kaixian Chen, Jianhua Shen, Xicheng Wang* & Hualiang Jiang*. TarFisDock: a web server for identifying drug targets with docking approach. Nucl. Acids Res. 2006, 34: W219-W224.