Kunliang Guan

Kunliang Guan is a MacArthur "genius" biochemist who left his distinguished professorship in the University of California, San Diego's pharmacology department to join Westlake University as a full-time chair professor in 2023, after more than 30 years in the United States.

Guan earned his BS in biology from Hangzhou University in 1982 through the China-United States Biochemistry Examination and Application (CUSBEA) program, then completed his PhD in biochemistry at Purdue University in 1989 under Henry Weiner. He joined the University of Michigan in 1992, rising from assistant to full professor and eventually the H. Christensen Professorship by 2003, before moving to UCSD in 2007. In 1998, at just 35, he became one of the youngest biochemists to receive the MacArthur Fellowship ("Genius Grant") for his pioneering work on MAP kinase enzymes as molecular switches controlling cellular responses.

In 2019, Guan became the target of an NIH-backed investigation into undisclosed research support from foreign sources, including Fudan University, and was banned from applying for NIH funding for two years starting in 2019. By the time the suspension ended in 2021, his UCSD lab's operations had shrunk dramatically. At Westlake, he leads a laboratory continuing his world-leading research on cell signaling pathways related to organ development and cancer, focusing on the Hippo pathway, a major signaling network regulating cell growth, tissue stability, and organ size. "I'm one of the lucky ones," Guan said. "I don't know how many people that the NIH wanted to stop are able to start again."