Education:
2011-2015 PhD, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
2006-2011 Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine, Northwest A&F University, China
Professional Positions:
2021-present Assistant Professor
School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing，China
2016-2021 Postdoc researcher
Department of Microbiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
Research Areas:
Viruses have the highest number of individuals in the global environment, with approximately 10^31 individuals. A viral community generally refers to the collection of all viruses in a specific environment, and is an important component of the microbiome. The viral community mainly includes viruses that can infect eukaryotic cells and bacteriophages that infect bacteria. Research on viruses that can cause human or animal diseases has been ongoing for decades, but the study of the overall viral community has not been sufficiently in-depth. In recent years, with the development of related technologies, increasing evidence shows that the human viral community has immense diversity and heterogeneity, and is closely related to human health, making it a potential pathogen or therapeutic target.
Our research group will use various biomedical technologies, especially multi-omics and bioinformatics technologies, to explore the relationship between the human viral community and its host, and investigate its impact on human health through analysis of human biological samples, model organisms, and various in vitro experiments.
We are particularly interested in the establishment and development of the viral community in the healthy human body. Our previous studies have revealed a segmented colonization pattern of the viral community in the human body. Healthy human newborns usually do not have viruses at birth, but they quickly become colonized by bacteria after birth. The initially colonizing viruses are mainly induced by the release of bacteriophage genomes initially parasitized within the gut microbiota. The next stage of colonization involves the parasitism of animal viruses in the gut, and the most influential factor in the colonization of bacteriophages and animal viruses during this process is breastfeeding.
We also pay close attention to the role of the viral community in related diseases. For example, we found that the ratio between the most abundant bacteriophages in the gut of patients with inflammatory bowel disease, Caudovirales and Microviridae, is closely related to the severity of the disease, and these bacteriophages may promote disease symptoms through interactions with bacteria and the host. In another study, analysis of the viral community in the respiratory tract of COVID-19 patients revealed symbiotic viruses that can predict the severity of the disease.
Scientific Contributions:
September 2023: Member of the Clinical Microbiology Sub-Committee of the Chinese Healthcare International Medical Promotion Association.
October 2023: Member of the Bacteriophage Technology Special Committee of the Chinese Society of Biotechnology.
Honors and Awards:
July 2014: Alberta Innovation Award
Selected Publications:
Liang G#, Gao H, Bushman FD#. The pediatric virome in health and disease. Cell Host & Microbe. (2022), http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2022.04.006
Liang G#, Cobián-Güemes AC, Albenberg L, Bushman FD# The gut virome in inflammatory bowel diseases. Current Opinion Virology. 2021 Dec;51:190-198
Merenstein C§, Liang G§ , Whiteside SA, Cobián-Güemes AG, Merlino MS, Taylor LJ, Glascock A, Bittinger K, Tanes C, Graham-Wooten J, Khatib LA, Fitzgerald AS, Reddy S, Baxter AE, Giles JR, Oldridge DA, Meyer NJ, Wherry EJ, McGinniss JE, Bushman FD, Collman RG. (2021) Signatures of COVID-19 Severity and Immune Response in the Respiratory Tract Microbiome. mBio. e0177721.
Bushman F#, Liang G#. (2021) Assembly of the virome in newborn human infants. Current Opinion Virology. 2021 Jun;48:17-22. doi: 10.1016/j.coviro.2021.03.004.
Liang G#, Bushman FD#. (2021) The human virome: assembly, composition and host interactions. Nature Review Microbiology. 2021 Aug;19(8):514-527.
Liang G, Zhao C, Zhang H, Mattei L, Kessler L, Sherrill-Mix S, Bittinger K, Wu G, Baldassano R, DeRusso P, Ford E, Elovitz M, Gerber J, Kelly A, Zemel A, Bushman FD. (2020) Step-wise assembly of the neonatal virome modulated by breast feeding. Nature 2020 Apr 15;1–5.Z.
Liang G, Conrad M, Kelsen J, Kessler L, Breton J, Albenberg L, Marakos S, Galgano A, Devas N, Erlichman J, Zhang H, Mattei L, Bittinger K, Baldassano R, Bushman FD. (2020) The dynamics of the gut virome in very early onset inflammatory bowel disease. Journal of Crohn’s and Colitis jjaa094, doi.org/10.1093/ecco-jcc/jjaa094
Malmuthuge N§, Liang G§, Guan LL. (2019) Regulation of rumen development in neonatal ruminants through microbial metagenomes and host transcriptomes. Genome Biology 23;20(1):172. doi: 10.1186/s13059-019-1786-0.
Nandi S§, Liang G§, Sindhava V, Basu A, Zhang Y, Angireddy R, Avadhani N, Atchison ML. (2020) YY1 Control of Mitochondrial-Related Genes does not Account for Regulation of Immunoglobulin Class Switch Recombination. European Journal of Immunology doi.org/10.1002/eji.201948385.
Aggarwala V§, Liang G§, Bushman FD. (2017) Viral communities of the human gut: metagenomic analysis of composition and dynamics. Mobile DNA 2017 Oct 3;8:12
Liang G, Malmuthuge N, Bao H, Griebel PJ, Stothard P, Guan LL. (2016) Transcriptome analysis reveals regional and temporal differences in mucosal immune system development in the small intestine of neonatal calves. BMC Genomics doi: 10.1186/s128640162957y.
Liang G, Malmuthuge N, Ren Y, Griebel PJ, Guan LL. (2016) Altered microRNA expression and pre-mRNA splicing events reveal new mechanisms associated with early stage Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis infection. Scientific Reports 22;6:24964. doi: 10.1038/srep24964.
Liang G, Malmuthuge N, McFadden TB, Bao H, Griebel PJ, Stothard P, Guan LL. (2014) Potential Regulatory Role of MicroRNAs in the Development of Bovine Gastrointestinal Tract during Early Life. PLoS ONE 9(3): e92592. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0092592.
Liang G, Malmuthuge N, Guan LL, Griebel PJ (2014) Model systems to analyze the role of miRNAs and commensal microflora in bovine mucosal immune system development. Molecular Immunology doi:10.1016/j.molimm.2014.10.014.
Wang D§, Liang G§, Wang B, Sun H, Liu J, Guan LL. (2016) Systematic microRNAome profiling reveals the roles of microRNAs in milk protein metabolism and quality: insights on low-quality forage utilization. Scientific Reports 6:21194
Yongjuan Guan§, Liang G§, Hawken PAR, Malecki IA, Cozens G, Vercoe PE, Martin GB, Guan LL (2015) Roles of small RNAs in the effects of nutrition on apoptosis and spermatogenesis in the adult testis. Scientific reports 5: 10372. doi: 10.1038/srep10372.
