Zhonglin Liu

Zhonglin Liu is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida, conducting research at the Scripps Research campus in Jupiter, Florida. His work is centered in the Liu Lab, which focuses on developing chemical tools for therapeutic discovery through innovative chemical biology approaches.

His educational background includes a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2012-2017) and a B.S. in Chemistry from Nanchang University (2008-2012).

Dr. Liu's research spans Chemical Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Medicinal Chemistry, Molecular Biology, and Proteomics. His lab specializes in creating chemical modalities and activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) platforms to identify novel disease treatments, with particular emphasis on covalent probe development for cancer targets and genomic instability mechanisms. The interdisciplinary nature of his work bridges synthetic chemistry with biological validation.

Analysis of his 14 publications (2017-2025) reveals a consistent focus on covalent modification strategies, especially trifluoromethylation chemistry and chemical probe design. His work demonstrates increasing biological relevance, evolving from fundamental synthetic methodologies toward targeted protein degradation and cancer therapeutics, with recent high-impact studies in Nature and Nature Chemical Biology addressing extrachromosomal DNA inheritance and allosteric kinase modulation.

The Liu Lab operates as an integrated chemistry-biology research unit at the UF Scripps campus, utilizing multidisciplinary approaches that combine organic synthesis, proteomics, and molecular biology to advance therapeutic discovery. Current projects emphasize translating chemical tools into biological insights for human diseases.