Award-winning HIV scientist from Washington joins China’s SMART academy, adding to flight of top talent

Shan Liang, formerly a tenured associate professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, has joined the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation (SMART).

By: Express Web Desk

August 23, 2025 08:56 PM IST

3 min read

Shan has focused his career on the biology of HIV infection and potential ways to control or eliminate the virus. (Photo: X/@StarboySAR)

An award-winning HIV researcher has left his position in the United States to take up a senior role at a Chinese medical research centre, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Shan Liang, formerly a tenured associate professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, has joined the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation (SMART). He will head SMART’s Institute of Human Immunology, the academy said in a statement on 15 August.

Shan is the third senior scientist to join SMART from a major US institution this year, SCMP reported. In May, neuroscientist Dan Yang moved from the University of California, Berkeley, to lead SMART’s sleep and consciousness group. In June, Lu Wei, a senior investigator from the US National Institutes of Health, also joined the Shenzhen academy.

Shan has focused his career on the biology of HIV infection and potential ways to control or eliminate the virus. “I am particularly interested in identifying unknown immune mechanisms to clear HIV,” he told a US interviewer last year.

According to SMART, his research has “laid an important foundation for elucidating the immune mechanisms of HIV infection and developing functional cure strategies”.

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Zhang Linqi, director of the Comprehensive AIDS Research Centre at Tsinghua University, told SCMP that Shan’s work was significant. “He has discovered new mechanisms by which HIV kills target cells, which is very important for the development of a new generation of drugs,” Zhang said.

One of Shan’s notable projects has examined the CARD8 inflammasome, a natural alarm system in human immune cells that detects active HIV protease and signals the destruction of infected cells. SMART said Shan’s future work will continue to explore CARD8 and also involve creating a genetically engineered mouse model to study HIV immune responses.

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Shan earned degrees in China before completing his PhD at Johns Hopkins University in 2012. He later trained as a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University, moving to Washington University in 2017. While in St Louis, he co-founded the Midwest Developmental Centre for AIDS Research, a network connecting researchers and public health experts.

He has received several honours, including the 2024 Unanue Prize for innovative research in immunology.

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