Speaker

Hongkui Deng is a Boya Chair professor of cell biology and a senior investigator at the Center for Life Sciences at Peking University. He is also the director of the Peking University Stem Cell Research Center.

In 2024, Prof. Deng was awarded the Future Science Prize 2024 in Life Sciences for his groundbreaking discoveries in chemically converting somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells.

Hongkui Deng earned his B.Sc.in Cell Biology from Wuhan University and his Ph.D. in immunology from the University of California, Los Angeles. From 1995 to 1997 he was an Aaron Diamond Postdoctoral Fellow with Dan R. Littman at the NYU School of Medicine’s Skirball Institute, where he identified major co-receptors responsible for HIV entry into cells. From 1998 to 2000, Hongkui was the director of molecular biology at Viacell Inc. working on ex vivo expansion of human hematopoietic stem cells.

Hongkui Deng was awarded the prestigious Cheung Kong Scholarship in 2000 and became a professor at Peking University in 2001. Since 2013, he has been the director of the Peking University Stem Cell Research Center. Professor Deng’s research focuses on somatic cell reprogramming and lineage specific differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. His lab also explores chemical biological approaches for manipulating cell fate and function. His group was the first to report a chemical approach to induce pluripotent stem cells. He has been awarded several awards and honors including the Tan Jiazhen Life Science Award in 2014. He also serves on a number of editorial boards including Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Stem Cell Report, and Cell Research. Professor Deng was elected to the ISSCR Board of Directors in 2010 and re-appointed for a second term in 2013.

« Go Back