doctoral_advisor website nationality fields workplaces name article_title citizenship alma_mater
kim sung-hou http://tonglab.biology.columbia.edu/ american biology columbia university liang tong liang tong
 united states of america peking university of california , berkeley phd -lrb- 1989 -rrb- university bs in chemistry -lrb- 1983 -rrb- ,
liang tong

liang tong is the current chair of the biological sciences department at columbia university .
his lab focuses on enzymes involved in fatty acid metabolism , including acetyl-coa carboxylase , carnitine acyltransferase , amp-activated protein kinase , and others .
these enzymes are important targets for drug discovery against obesity , diabetes and other human diseases .
the goal of his research is to produce structural information on these enzymes and to understand their functions at the molecular level .
the structural information will also lay the foundation for drug discovery against these targets .
another area of his research is on proteins involved in pre-mrna 3 ' - end processing .
most eukaryotic mrna precursors must undergo cleavage and polyadenylation in their 3 ' - ends before they can function as mrnas .
this processing machinery contains more than 16 protein factors , which form several sub-complexes -lrb- cpsf , cstf -rrb- .
the goal of his research is to understand the molecular basis of this important event .
