Dr. Liwu Fu is a tenured faculty in Cancer Center, Sun Yat-sen University, China. Dr. Fu finished his M.D. program in 1987 in Guangdong Medical and Pharmaceutical College (rename to Guangdong pharmaceutical university), Guangzhou, China in 1987 and received a Ph.D. in 1996 in Cancer Center, Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Sciences (SUMS) (now rename to: Sun Yat-sen University), Guangzhou, China. Then he worked as a lecturer, Deputy Head (1996–1998) and associate professor (1998–1999) in Department of Anticancer Drug, Cancer Center, Sun Yat-sen University, China. After a postdoctoral training in Department of Pathology and Lab Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, USA (1999–2001), Dr. Fu continued to work at Department of Anticancer Drug, Cancer Center, Sun Yat-sen University, China and became a professor since 2002.
Dr. Fu has long standing research interests in cancer pharmacology and chemotherapy, especially the cancer multidrug resistance and TKIs' resistance as well as personalized chemotherapy. His original contribution includes establishing tumor living tissue susceptibility system in vitro, discovering drugs targeting ABC transporters to reversing MDR, and developing new anticancer agents.
Large efforts in Dr. Fu laboratory have been devoted to studying multidrug resistance and its reversal as well as chemoresistance of cancer stem cell and therapy with an ultimate goal of developing novel reversal MDR therapeutics. His studies have revealed a number of TKIs, such as erlotinib, apatinib, vatalanib, afatinib, electinib, pelitinib, ibrutinib, and lapatinib, antagonize multidrug resistance–associated protein–mediated multidrug resistance by inhibiting its ABC transporters function. His research has also identified a novel compound PBA2, which showed excellent anti-tumor effect in various tumor cell lines. Dr. Fu has developed a novel robust platform to achieve a consistent, high-yield and large-scale production of natural and biologically-active reversal MDR agents.
Dr. Fu has published over 240 peer-reviewed research and review papers, including 6 papers published in Cancer Research. The research in Dr. Fu's laboratory has been supported by several grants (National Natural Science Foundation of China/863 Project/973 Project). In addition to his research, Dr. Fu has been actively involved in teaching courses in cancer drug pharmacology and toxicology, and guiding graduate and doctorial students and postdoctors in research and career development. Dr. Fu vividly provides extensive services to the scientific community which includes various committees and advisory panels/boards. He is chairman of Board of directors, Anticancer Drug Section, Guangdong Anticancer Society and an editorial member of scientific journals (e.g., Molecular Pharmacology, American Journal of Cancer Research, Recent Patents on Anti-Cancer Drug Discovery, Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B, etc.). He has also served as a reviewer for national research grants of Italy, Czech Republic, and China and has been invited to present his works in many international and national meetings.
Footnotes
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.