Renjing Liu

Dr Renjing Liu is a stem cell biologist with specialised training in vascular biology and epigenetics. She obtained her Bachelors (Hons) and PhD from the University of Sydney, and was awarded the international Sir Keith Fellowship to undertake postdoctoral training at Yale University. She trained at the Yale Stem Cell Center in induced pluripotent stem cells and the epigenetics field. She was then awarded the prestigious Yale Browne-Cox Fellowship and completed a second postdoctoral traineeship at the Yale Cardiovascular Research Center. There she made the seminal discovery of a master regulator that controls vascular smooth muscle cells (the main cell type found in blood vessel walls).

Dr Liu returned to Australia in late 2013 to head her own lab at the Centenary Institute, University of Sydney. Her work has been supported by the Ramaciotti Biomedical Award, NHMRC, and NSW Health. She is the recipient of the National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship and the University of Sydney SOAR Award.

Renjing joined the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute Faculty in July 2020 as the head of the Vascular Epigenetics Laboratory. Her lab focuses on finding ways to convert pathological vascular smooth muscle cells into the physiological cell type as a way to treat cardiovascular diseases.