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Biography
I attained BSc Pharmacy (1982 - 1986) and MSc Biopharmaceutics & Pharmacokinetics (1986 - 1989) from China Pharmaceutical University, following which I was appointed as Lecturer in Pharmaceutics at the same university (1989 - 1991). I attained my PhD in 1992 under the supervision of Professor Mike Richards in the School of Pharmacy, The Robert Gordon University (Scotland, UK). After completing my PhD studies in 1995, I spent two years working as a post-doc fellow in the Department of Pharmacy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 1997 I returned to the UK to continue my research of topical drug delivery at the Department of Pharmacy, King's College London, and developed label-free quantitative Proteomics with its application for toxicology research in the laboratory of Professor Allan Boobis and Dr Rob Edwards at the Centre of Therapeutics and Toxicology, Imperial College London. In 2010 I was appointed as Senior Lecturer of Pharmacology in the Department of Life Sciences, University of Bedfordshire and developed and led the MSc Pharmacology course. In 2016 I joined the School of Pharmacy at Nottingham as Associate Professor and the course Director of the BSc International Pharmacy, a part of the first UK-China Joint Clinical Pharmacy program.
In addition to my academic career, I am a registered pharmacist with the General Pharmaceutical Council of Great Britain, and have practicing experience in community pharmacy with Boots the Chemist and local pharmacies.
Teaching Summary
New course development & management:
BSc International Pharmacy
Module teaching delivery and management:
Lectures/workshops: One module (BFI) of BSc Year 1; Five modules (GIL, AAI, CVS, RED, PIN) of BSc Year 2; One module (SHP/SPI) of MPharm/BSc Year 2; One module (Natural Product) of MSCi Pharmaceutical Science Year 3
Research Summary
My current research interest lies in molecular pharmacology combined with drug delivery, in particular, development of various in vitro and in vivo models for drug screening and pharmacological… read more
Recent Publications
YAO, H., URAS, GIUSEPPE, ZHANG, PENGFEI, XU, SHENGTAO, YIN, YING, LIU, JIE, QIN, SHUAI, LI, XINOU, ALLEN, STEPHANIE, BAI, RENREN, GONG, QI, ZHANG, HAIYAN, ZHU, ZHEYING and XU, JINYI, 2021. Discovery of novel tacrine-pyrimidone hybrids as potent dual AChE/GSK-3 inhibitors for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. (In Press.)
LU, LI, HAO, KUN, HONG, YU, LIU, JIE, ZHU, JINWEI, JIANG, WENJIAO, ZHU, ZHEYING, WANG, GUANGJI and PENG, YING, 2021. Magnesium isoglycyrrhizinate reduces hepatic lipotoxicity through regulating metabolic abnormalities International Journal of Molecular Sciences. (In Press.)
URAS, GIUSEPPE, MANCA, ALESSIA, ZHANG, PENGFEI, MARKUS, ZSUZSA, MACK, NATALIE, ALLEN, STEPHANIE, BO, MARCO, XU, SHENGTAO, XU, JINYL, GEORGIOU, MARIOS and ZHU, ZHEYING, 2021. In vivo evaluation of a newly synthesized acetylcholinesterase inhibitor in a transgenic Drosophila model of Alzheimer's disease Frontiers in Neuroscience. (In Press.)
J CHEN, T WANG, S XU, A LIN, H TAO, W XIE, Z ZHU and J XU, 2017. Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel nitric oxide-donating protoberberine derivatives as anti-tumor agents European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. 132, 173-183
Current Research
My current research interest lies in molecular pharmacology combined with drug delivery, in particular, development of various in vitro and in vivo models for drug screening and pharmacological evaluation of novel drug candidates in the treatment of cancers, Alzheimer's diseases, and infections. Integrated application of proteomics, genomics and metabolomics as the molecular biology techniques together with imaging techniques for mechanistic studies of efficacy and toxicity of new drug candidates and/or drug delivery systems
The research projects currently available in my group include:
1) Alzheimer's disease: pharmacological studies and target validation pathway of new drug candidates using 2D or 3D in vitro cells based and in vivo animal models including Drosophila, iPSC-derived CNS, CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and gene therapy
2) Cancers: pharmacological evaluation in vitro and in vivo of novel anti-cancer drug candidates, and development of novel nanosystems for enhanced or targeted delivery of anti-cancer drugs locally and systemically.
3) Infections: evaluation of anti-bacterial efficacy of natural pure compounds and their novel derivatives on oral and GIT bacteria including clinical strains, explore mechanisms of antibiotic resistance at cellular and molecular levels.
4) Cellular pharmacokinetics using advanced analytical and imaging techniques
5) Drug formulation and delivery systems (controlled release solid dosage forms; transdermal drug delivery)
We are always looking for new research members to join the group to experience the excitement of research and make new discoveries. Places for research students (PhD or MRes) are available on all the above projects. Please get in touch to discuss if you are interested in the research areas. For international students, there are scholarship schemes to receive support, please get in touch for up to date information.