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Honglin Luo

Professor

About

Dr. Luo received her MD and MSc in Biomedical Engineering in China. She then pursued a postdoctoral training in Cardiovascular research with a focus on signal transduction at the University of Washington. Dr. Luo started her faculty appointment as an Assistant Professor in 2003 at the University of British Columbia. She was a CIHR New Investigator and a MSFHR Scholar. Her research was supported by CIHR, NSERC, CFI, Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada, ALS Canada, BC Lung, Mitacs, and St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation. Dr. Luo has published 108 peer-reviewed papers (H-index 39 and i10-index 74). Most of these publications have been appeared in leading journals, including Circulation, Nature Medicine, Autophagy, Cell Reports, Journal of Virology, PNAS, Cell Death and Differentiation, Cell Host and Microbe, and Cell Research.

Education & Training

  • Postdoctoral Fellow (1997-2000), University of Washington, Seattle
  • MSc (1989)-Sichuan University (Former West China University of Medical Sciences), Chengdu, China
  • MD (1986) – Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China

Area of Interest

The focus of Dr. Luo’s research program is to define the molecular and pathogenetic determinants of virus-host interactions in enterovirus-induced cardiac and neurodegenerative diseases. The ongoing research projects include: (1) Understanding molecular mechanisms of impaired cardiac function in enteroviral myocarditis. This research focuses on the protein quality control system, which includes molecular chaperones and protein degradation pathways (i.e., the ubiquitin-proteasome system and autophagy) with the long-term goal to design effective molecular therapies for this disease; (2) Determining the possible role of enteroviral infection in the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Dr. Luo’s laboratory recently made an exciting discovery that enteroviral infection results in the hallmark molecular and pathological features of ALS. The current project aims to establish and understand the contribution of enteroviral infection in the pathogenesis of ALS and to test whether application of anti-enterovirus drugs can lessen the progression of ALS; and (3) Developing coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3) as an oncolytis virus for lung cancer treatment. Using cell and mouse models, Dr. Luo’s group recently found that CVB3 is an extremely potent anti-tumor virus, destroying various types of lung cancer cells, with limited effects on normal cells. The present research is to genetically engineer CVB3 to further enhance its safety and anti-tumor potency for the treatment of lung cancer.

Team Members

  • Chen Seng Ng, Postdoctoral fellow
  • Paul Hanson, Postdoctoral fellow
  • Yasir Mohamud, PhD student
  • Tim Xue, PhD student
  • Huitao Liu, PhD student
  • Amirhossein Bahreyn, PhD student
  • John Zhang, Research Technician

Publications