Legacy Research
For nearly three decades, the Liu Lab has contributed foundational discoveries across multiple areas of cell biology, signaling, and disease mechanisms. This work helped define core principles of intercellular communication, signal transduction, and cellular organization, laying the groundwork for both fundamental understanding and translational advances. While the lab’s current efforts focus on extracellular vesicle biology and cancer cell fate, our legacy research continues to inform how we think about cellular systems, disease progression, and therapeutic intervention.
Together, these efforts produced a substantial body of work that shaped multiple areas of cell biology; full publication details are available on our ÌýPublications Page.
Growth Factor Signaling and Cell Migration
Early work in the Liu Lab helped define how growth factor signaling networks dynamically regulate collective cell migration and epithelial organization. Using live-cell FRET biosensors, quantitative imaging, and pharmacological perturbations, these studies revealed how spatial and temporal signaling patterns, rather than static pathway activation, govern coordinated cell behavior. This work established a framework for understanding how signaling heterogeneity within tissues drives migration during development, wound healing, and disease progression.
Cell Fate Decisions in Response to Stress Stimuli
The lab explored how cells interpret distinct stress stimuli to execute divergent fate decisions, including repair, mitophagy, and apoptosis. By dissecting mitochondrial stress signaling through pathways such as PINK1–Parkin, this work demonstrated how different biochemical perturbations engage overlapping yet non-identical response programs. These studies clarified how stress intensity, duration, and context shape downstream cellular outcomes, providing insight into mechanisms that underlie degenerative disease and therapeutic vulnerability.
Chemical Biology and Biochemistry of the Ubiquitin System
A major focus of the lab’s legacy work examined ubiquitin-mediated regulation of cell cycle progression and signaling fidelity through biochemical and chemical biology approaches. These studies elucidated how E3 ligase complexes such as SCF^Skp2 integrate upstream signaling cues to control substrate stability and cellular proliferation. By combining mechanistic biochemistry with targeted perturbations, this work helped establish principles by which ubiquitin-dependent protein turnover enforces orderly cell cycle transitions.
Mps1 Kinase and Spindle Checkpoint Signaling
The Liu Lab made foundational contributions to understanding spindle checkpoint signaling through detailed studies of the Mps1 kinase. By integrating structural analysis, biochemical interrogation, and functional assays, this work revealed how Mps1 activity is regulated and how checkpoint fidelity is maintained during mitosis. These insights advanced understanding of genomic stability control and established mechanistic connections between kinase regulation, checkpoint signaling, and cancer biology.