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Jun-Jie (Gogo) Liu Ph.D.

Associate Professor

2007-2011 B.S., School of Life Sciences, Sichuan University

2011-2016 Ph.D., School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University

2016-2018 Postdoctoral Fellow, MBIB Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

2018-2020 Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, UC Berkeley

2018-2020 Life Science Research Fund Fellow Sponsored by Pfizer

2020-present Assistant professor, Associate professor, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University

2020-present PI, Tsinghua-Peking Joint Center for Life Sciences, Tsinghua University

Beijing Frontier Research Center for Biological Structure, Tsinghua University

● Research Interest：

Our team develops innovative molecular and computational tools to advance biological research:

(1) Explore the diversity of biological macromolecular machines(e.g., prokaryotic immune systems, ribozymes, and retrotransposons) and leverage novel macromolecular tools for nucleic acid manipulation and detection.

(2) Employ computational approaches to model genome diversity, simulate evolutionary processes, and investigate how AI and robotics can transform the future of life sciences research.

● Selected Publications:

1. Jin S#, Zhu Z#, Li Y#, Zhang S#, Liu Y, Li D, Li Y, Luo Y, Cheng Z, Zhao KT, Gao Q, Yang G, Li H, Liang R, Zhang R, Qiu JL, Zhang YE*, Liu JJ*, Gao C*.Functional RNA splitting drove the evolutionary emergence of type V CRISPR-Cas systems from transposons. Cell. 2025 Oct 30; 188(22): 6283-6300.

2. Li D#, Zhang S#, Lin Shuo#, Xing WJ#, Yang Y, Zhu F, Su D*, Chen CL*, Liu JJ*. Cas12e orthologs evolve variable structural elements to facilitate dsDNA cleavage. Nat Commun. 2024 Dec 30;15(1):10727.

3. Xing WJ#, Li DY#, Wang WJ, Liu JJ*, Chen CL*. Conformational dynamics of CasX (Cas12e) in mediating DNA cleavage revealed by single-molecule FRET. Nucleic Acids Res. 2024 Aug 27;52(15):9014-9027.

4. Zhang SY#, Sun A#, Qian JM#, Lin S#, Xing W, Yang Y, Zhu HZ, Zhou XY, Guo YS, Liu Y, Meng Y, Jin SL, Song W, Li CP, Li Z, Jin S, Wang JH, Dong MQ, Gao C, Chen C*, Bai Y*, Liu JJ*. Pro-CRISPR PcrIIC1 associated Cas9 system for enhanced bacterial immunity. Nature. 2024 Jun;630(8016):484-492.

5. Liu ZX#, Zhang S#, Zhu HZ#, Chen ZH#, Yang Y#, Li LQ#, Lei Y, Liu Y, Li DY, Sun A, Li CP, Tan SQ, Wang GL, Shen JY, Jin S, Gao C, Liu JJ*. Hydrolytic endonucleolytic ribozyme (HYER) is programmable for sequence-specific DNA cleavage. Science, 2024 Feb 2; 383(6682): eadh4859.

6. Deng P#, Tan SQ#, Yang QY, Fu L, Wu Y, Zhu HZ, Sun L, Bao Z, Lin Y, Zhang QC, Wang H, Wang J*, Liu JJ*. Structural RNA components supervise the sequential DNA cleavage in R2 retrotransposon. Cell, 2023 Jun 22;186(13):2865-2879.

7. Li DY#, Li LQ#, Liu JJ*. Nucleases in gene-editing technologies: past and prologue. National Science Open, 2023 Jul 18;2(5): 20220067.

8. Hu Z#, Sun A#, Yang J, Naz G, Sun G, Li Z, Liu JJ*, Zhang S*, Zhang X*. Regulation of the CRISPR-Cas12a system by methylation and demethylation of guide RNA. Chemical Science, 2023,14(22):5945-5955.

9. Sun A#, Li CP#, Chen Z#, Zhang S#, Li DY, Yang Y, Li LQ, Zhao Y, Wang K, Li Z, Liu J, Liu S, Wang J*, Liu JJ*. The compact Casπ (Cas12l) ‘bracelet’ provides a unique structural platform for DNA manipulation. Cell Research, 2023 Mar;33(3), 229–244.

10. Tsuchida CA#, Zhang S#, Doost MS#, Zhao Y#, Wang J, O'Brien E, Fang H, Li CP, Li D, Hai ZY, Chuck J, Brötzmann J, Vartoumian A, Burstein D, Chen XW, Nogales E, Doudna JA*, Liu JJ*. Chimeric CRISPR-CasX enzymes and guide RNAs for improved genome editing activity. Mol. Cell, 2022 Mar 17;82(6):1199-1209.

11. Yang M, Sun R, Deng P, Yang Y, Wang W, Liu JJ*, Chen C*. Nonspecific interactions between SpCas9 and dsDNA sites located downstream of the PAM mediate facilitated diffusion to accelerate target search. Chem. Sci., 2021 Aug 20;12(38):12776-12784.

12. Liu TY#, Liu JJ#, Aditham AJ, Nogales E, Doudna JA*. Target preference of Type III-A CRISPR-Cas complexes at the transcription bubble. Nat. Commun., 2019 Jul 5;10(1):3001.

13. Liu JJ#, Orlova N#, Oakes BL#, Ma E, Spinner HB, Baney KLM, Chuck J, Tan D, Knott GJ, Harrington LB, Al-Shayeb B, Wagner A, Brötzmann J, Staahl BT, Taylor KL, Desmarais J, Nogales E*, Doudna JA*. Author Correction: CasX enzymes comprise a distinct family of RNA-guided genome editors. Nature, 2019 Apr;568(7752):E8-E10.

14. Jiang F#, Liu JJ#, Osuna BA#, Xu M, Berry JD, Rauch BJ, Nogales E, Bondy-Denomy J*, Doudna JA*. Temperature-Responsive Competitive Inhibition of CRISPR-Cas9. Mol. Cell, 2019 Feb 7;73(3):601-610.

15. Wright AV#, Liu JJ#, Knott GJ, Doxzen KW, Nogales E, Doudna JA*. Structures of the CRISPR genome integration complex. Science, 2017 Sep 15;357(6356):1113-1118.

#: Co-first author; *: Corresponding author

● Honors and Awards:

2024 National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholar, China

2024 Xplorer Prize

2024 17th C.C. Tan Life Science Innovation Awards

2024 6th Promega Distinguished Young Scientist in Biochemistry

2023 10th Beijing Outstanding Young Talent Award

2023 8th “Bei Shizhang” Award for Young Biophysicists

2020 Outstanding Postdoc Award, UC Berkeley

2018 Life Science Research Foundation Fellowship sponsored by Pfizer

● Contact info：

E-mail：junjiegogoliu(at)tsinghua.edu.cn (Please change (at) to @ when contacting)

Website：http://gogolab.life.tsinghua.edu.cn

Tel：+86-010-62770270 (lab) +86-010-62770276 (office)