Bianling Liu, MD. Center of Cancer Systems Biology Caritas St.Elizabeth's Medical Center Tufts University School of Medicine 736 Cambridge Street Boston, MA 02135   Tel: +1.617.779.6546 Mail: bianling.liu [at] tufts.edu

Education and Training:
Bianling Liu, M.D., was trained as a hematologist at Beijing Basic Medical Institute of Sciences in Beijing, China. In 1996, she obtained her Certificate of Specialty and Technology in Hematology as an attending physician from Ministry Personnel of China. After one year fellowship training in BMT/ hematology at Hadassah University Hospital in Israel, she pursued postdoctoral studies under professors Tsvee Lapidot in the department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Sciences. In Aug. 2000, she came to University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, as a research associate, in Stem Cell Institute directed by Catherine M. Verfaillie and then continued her postdoc fellowship training in the department of Medicine at Brigham &Women Hospital. She recently joined the Center of Caner System Biology headed by Lynn Haltky, at St. Elizabeth Medical center, Tufts university Medical school.

Research interests:

Dr. Liu's interests include: (1) understanding cellular and molecular mechanisms underlining the stem cell pluripotency, self- renewal, migration and homing and testing the possible stem cell based approaches for tissue repair and regenerative medicine, her study focuses on adult stem cell, especially hematopoietic stem cell ( HSC), mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) and endothelial progenitor cells (EPC); (2) Investigating the role of cancer stem cell on tumor initiation , migration and metastasis and develop effective theraputics for caner cure; identification of CD44 as a biomarker for cancer and cancer stem cell function.

Research abstrat:

Her early study focuses more on human hematopoietic stem cell, investigating the role of SDF-1α/CR CX4 on migration and homing of human hematopoietic stem cells. She also demonstrated that upregulation of fas/CD95 expressed on in vitro cultured and expanded human hematopoietic stem cells mediates the homing defect. She is also among the first to efficiently deliver the genes in vivo into hematopoietic stem cell in rat bone marrow using SV40 viral vector, providing a promise tool for future gene therapy. Since 2004, her study focuses on the role of E-selectin and its ligand, HCELL(Hematopoietic cell E-/L-selectin ligand), a specialized glycoform of CD44, on MSC homing. MSCs hold great promise for treating or curing human diseases. However, its use for clinical application has been limited by the low homing efficiency into the damaged tissues. She has shown that the low homing efficiency of MSCs is due to the lack of HCELL expression, and ex vivo glycan engineering of CD44 programmed MSC homing into the bone. Her recent study also concerns the identification of multipotent stem cells for therapeutic application for regenerating both hematopoietic and cardiovascular functions. Dr. Liu demonstrated that CD31 represents a marker for multipotent stem cells from mouse bone marrow, with hematopoietic, angiogenic and vasculogenic properties, suggesting that CD31may be a useful marker for purification of an ideal population of stem cells for treatment of hematopoietic as well as cardiovascular diseases. Based on new development in her research, Dr. Liu's study is now focusing on Cancer Biology, using stem cell system to understand how cancer initiates and metastases and how treatment may be optimized; the role of CD44 and cancer stem cell on these processes.

 
Selected publications:

• Louboutin JP, Liu B, Chekmasova AA, Reyes BA, van Bockstaele EJ, Strayer DS. Delivering genes to the organ-localized immune system: long-term results of direct intramarrow transduction. J Gene Med. 2007; 9(10):843-851
• Louboutin JP, Liu B, Reyes BA, Van Bockstaele EJ, Strayer DS. Rat bone marrow progenitor cells transduced in situ by rSV40 vectors differentiate into multiple CNS cell lineages. Stem Cells. 2006; 24(14):2801-9
• Strayer DS, Agrawal L, Cordelier P, Liu B, Louboutin JP, Marusich E, McKee HJ, Ren CN, Strayer MS. Long-term gene expression in dividing and nondividing cells using SV40-derived vectors. Mol Boitechnol. 2006;34(2):257-270
• Liu B, Daviau J, Nichols CN, Strayer DS. In vivo gene transfer into rat bone marrow progenitor cells using rSV40 viral vectors. Blood. 2005; 106(8):2655-2662.
• Strayer DS Cordelier P, Kondo R, Liu B, Matskevich AA, Mckee HJ, Nichols CN, Mitchell CB, Geverd DA, White MK, Strayer MS. What they are, how they work and why they do what they do? The story of SV40-derived gene therapy vectors and what they have to offer. Curr Gene Ther. 2005; 5(2):151-65.
• Liu B, Buckley SM, Lewis ID, Goldman AI, Wagner JE, van der Loo JC. Homing defect of cultured human hematopoietic cells in the NOD/SCID mouse is mediated by Fas/CD95. Exp Hematol. 2003; 31(9):824-32.
• J. C.M. van der loo, B.L. Liu, A.I. Goldman, and K.S. Eaton, Fetal liver stromal cell line AFT024 enhances gene transfer in primitive human hematopoietic cells in G-CSF-mobilized peripheral blood. Human Gene Therapy. 2002; 13(11):1317-30.
• Liu B, Novick D, Kim SH, Rubinstein M. Production of a biologically active human interleukin 18 requires its prior synthesis as PRO-IL-18. Cytokine. 2000; 12(10):1519-25.
• Kollet O, Moore JG, Aviram R, Ben-Hur H, Liu BL, Nagler A Shultz L, Feldman M, Lapidot T. The plant lectin FRIL supports prolonged in vitro maintenance of quiescent human cord blood CD34 (+) CD38 (-/low)/SCID repopulating stem cells. Exp Hematol. 2000; 28 (6):726-36.

Patent invented:

Preparation of biologically active molecules
Inventors: Menachem Rubinstein, Bianling Liu, Daniela Novick, Pierre Graber
Patent number: 7098002