Plant natural products are one of the main sources of small molecule drugs, nutraceuticals, cosmetics and fragrances, and play an important role in economy development. Our research focus on microbial synthesis of plant natural products. We try to achieve efficient biosynthesis of valuable plant natural products in microorganisms by synthetic biology strategies, including gene elements identification, artificial biosynthetic pathway design and construction, enzyme engineering, metabolic regulation and fermentation optimization.

September 2002-July 2006, Shandong Agricultural University, College of Life Sciences, Bachelor's degree;

September 2006- July 2012, Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ph.D.;

August 2012-October 2016 Assistant Researcher, Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences;

November 2016 till now, Associate Professor, Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Supported by the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of CAS

Bi, H#., Qu, G#., Wang, S., Zhuang, Y., Sun, Z*., Liu, T*., Ma, Y. 2022. Biosynthesis of a rosavin natural product in Escherichia coli by glycosyltransferase rational design and artificial pathway construction. Metab Eng. 69, 15-25. doi: 10.1016/j.ymben.2021.10.010.

Bi, H#., Wang, S#., Zhou, W., Zhuang, Y., Liu, T*. 2019. Producing gram-scale unnatural rosavin analogues from glucose by engineered Escherichia coli. ACS Synth. Biol. 8, 1931-1940. doi: 10.1021/acssynbio.9b00219.

Zhou, W., Bi, H., Zhuang, Y., He, Q., Yin, H., Liu, T., Ma, Y., 2017. Production of cinnamyl alcohol glucoside from glucose in Escherichia coli. J. Agric. Food Chem. 65, 2129-2135. doi: 10.1021/acs.jafc.7b00076.

Zhou, W., Zhuang, Y., Bai, Y., Bi, H*., Liu T*., Ma Y. 2016. Biosynthesis of phlorisovalerophenone and 4-hydroxy-6-isobutyl-2-pyrone in Escherichia coli from glucose. Microb Cell Fact. 15(1), 149. doi: 10.1186/s12934-016-0549-9.

Bai, Y#., Bi, H#., Zhuang, Y., Liu, C., Cai, T., Liu, X., Zhang, X., Liu, T*., Ma, Y. 2014.  Production of salidroside in metabolically engineered Escherichia coli. Sci Rep. 4, 6640. doi: 10.1038/srep06640.

Hosting projects such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Sciences and Technology Planning Project of Tianjin City. Participated in the National Key Research and Development Program of China, the Tianjin Synthetic Biotechnology Innovation Capacity Improvement Project, Corporate cooperation projects, etc.