The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) announced on June 30 that Professor LIU Chenli, a professor at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was elected an EMBO Associate Member.

LIU obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Hong Kong, and postdoctoral training in MCB, Harvard University. Over the years, his group made major contributions in elucidating the evolutionarily stable strategy to colonize spatially extended habitats and the interconnections between bacterial cell growth, DNA replication, and cell division.

Professor LIU has been conducting systematic research into the rational design principles of synthetic biological systems. His work helped with the identification of mathematical rules that describes the quantitative relationships among population-level phenotypes, single-cell phenotypes, and genotypes in cell populations. These findings guided the design and synthesis of functional biological systems.

Founded in 1964 and headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany, EMBO is one of the most prestigious academic organizations in the international life sciences community. It brings together more than 2,200 leading researchers, including more than 90 Nobel laureates.

Since EMBO's founding, 14 scientists from the Chinese mainland have been elected Associate Members.