Tao Ye

Tao Ye obtained his PhD from Queen's University, Belfast (QUB) (1993). After pursuing a post-doctoral stay (1993-1994) with Professor Tony McKervey at QUB, he moved to Nottingham University (1994-1998) as a "Realising our Potential Award" (ROPA) fellow to engage in the total synthesis of marine natural products, working with Professor Gerry Pattenden, FRS. He started his independent career in 1998, initially at The University of Hong Kong and then joined The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2001. In 2015, he moved to Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School where as a Professor of Chemical Biology and Senior PI. His research interests span the disciplines of natural product synthesis, chemical biology, synthetic biology and drug discovery, which include the discovery and development of new agents of medicinal value through major advances in chemical and/or biochemical synthesis. In addition to the completion of total synthesis of 70 natural products, he is well-known for contributions to the structural revision of the misassigned natural products. He received a "Xiaoyu Hu Memorial Award”, a “WuXi PharmaTech Life Science and Chemistry Award”, and has been admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. YE's laboratory is engaged at the interface of chemistry and biology, and is mainly working in two main areas:

(1) Total Synthesis of Structurally and Biologically Compelling Natural Products and Their Analogues. YE's investigations focus upon the design and development of general strategies that may be employed to assemble complex molecular subunits common to a number of alkaloids, cyclodepsipeptides, and macrolides. Through the power of total synthesis, YE and his co-workers not only provide opportunities to challenge the state-of-the-art of organic synthesis but also gain insight into their structure/activity relationships and biosynthetic origin. So far, YE's group has completed the total syntheses of 70 marine natural products.

(2) Organic Synthesis towards Small-Molecule Probes for Biology and Discovery of Novel Drugs. In the second area, YE's research interests lie in the design, synthesis and optimisation of small molecules for therapeutic application or their use in the elucidation of biological function, which includes the design and synthesis of protein secondary structure mimetics as potential regulators of protein-protein interactions. The focus of current research centers on rationally designed molecular probes / drug candidates, and their application to biological problems, especially in cancer biology and neurodegenerative disorders.

Companies

• Professor & Deputy Dean, School of Chemical Biology & Biotechnology Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School (2018)
• Chief Scientific Officer QianYan Pharmate (2016)
• Professor, School of Chemical Biology & Biotechnology Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School (2015)
• Associate Professor; Director of drug discovery program; Principal Research Fellow The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2002 — 2015)
• Research Assistant Professor The University of Hong Kong (1998 — 2001)

Education

• ROPA Fellow University of Nottingham (1994 — 1998)
• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) & Postdoc. Queen's University Belfast (1989 — 1994)
• BSc; MSc East China University of Science and Technology (1979 — 1986)