On November 8，2016, with the invitation of Prof. Zigang Li，Prof. Shawn Li visited our school and gave an interesting lecture titled “Functional Proteomics for Precision Cancer Medicine”, teachers and students of our school actively participated in the academic discussion and exchanged ideas.

Prof. Shawn Li’s group mainly focus on the functional proteomics study. They examined the Src homology 2 (SH2) domain, a modular domain that recognizes phosphorylated tyrosine (pTyr) residues, to investigate how the binding affinity of a modular domain for its ligand influences the structure and cellular function of the protein. Using the phage display method to perform directed evolution of the pTyr-binding residues in the SH2 domain of the tyrosine kinase Fyn, they identified three amino acid substitutions that critically affected binding.They generated three SH2 domain triple-point mutants that were "superbinders" with much higher affinities for pTyr-containing peptides than the natural domain. (Written by Xuan Qin)

Profile for the speaker:

Dr. Shawn Li received his B.S. degree from Peking University in 1985, and Ph.D. degree from University of Toronto in 1995. After five years of postdoctoral research in Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mt. Sinai Hospital, Dr. Li started his own independent career in the Department of Biochemistry at the Western University in 2000. He is now Canada Research Chair in Proteomics and Functional Genomics.His research interests lie at elucidating the molecular and epigenetic basis of cancer with the ultimate goal of developing protein- and peptide-based diagnostic or therapeutic agents for cancer. He has received numerous research and teaching awards, among which the latest ones include the Worldiscoveries Annual Vanguard Awards (2016).