Dr. Liao, Fang 廖楓 博士
Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Chemokines are a family of more than forty small, secreted proteins. Chemokines have been divided into CXC, CC, C and CX3C subfamilies. Functionally, chemokines can be divided into homeostatic and inflammatory; homeostatic chemokines play critical roles in lymphoid organogenesis and homeostasis, while inflammatory chemokines are involved in inflammatory responses. Chemokines target cells through receptors that are members of the seven transmembrane domain G protein-coupled receptor superfamily. My research focuses on understanding the chemokines and their receptors from the perspectives of biochemistry and immunology. There are two principal research interests in my laboratory: (1) dissecting the signaling pathway used by the CCR6 receptor and investigating how CCR6 traffics within the cell in response to activation by chemokine agonist; (2) investigating the biology of chemokines/chemokine receptors in inflammatory and infectious diseases using gene-targeted mice, such as the biological functions of chemokines/chemokine receptors in virus infection and the biological roles of CCR6 and CXCR3 in inflammatory diseases.
趨化素(Chemokine)是一群可被誘導，可被分泌而且結構類似的小分子(8-14kd)。趨化素可分為CXC、CC、CX3C及C四亞群；若以功能來分類，趨化素可分為恆定性趨化素(Homeostasis chemokines)及發炎性趨化素(Inflammatory chemokines)。趨化素受器(Chemokine receptor)是屬於G-蛋白偶合受器(G-protein coupled receptor; GPCR)，主要表現在白血球，趨化素及其受器的主要功能是將白血球吸引到感染或受傷的組織，使白血球能發揮抵抗病原菌的能力並且啟動免疫及發炎反應。本室主要探討趨化素及其受器的生理功能：(1)研究CCR6的生化及生理功能；(2)利用動物模式來探討趨化素及其受器在感染及發炎疾病所扮演的角色。
