Professor Jiang Changtao

Long-Term Professor & Boya Distinguished Professor, Peking University School of Basic Medical Sciences

Vice Dean | Doctoral Advisor

Recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars

Awardee of the Xplorer Prize

Email: jiangchangtao@bjmu.edu.cn

Research Areas:

1. Investigate  the evolutionary mechanisms of steroid metabolites and their enzymes in  animals in coordination with microorganisms, elucidating the life logic  of cross-kingdom metabolic regulation.

2. Decipher  the receptors and molecular mechanisms through which microbiota-derived  steroid metabolites regulate host metabolism, and develop targeted  intervention strategies for diseases.

3. Construct an AI-based technology for mining steroid-metabolizing enzymes to discover novel bioactive steroid metabolites.

Overview:

Professor  Jiang Changtao has long been dedicated to research on gut microbiota  and host metabolic regulation, establishing a groundbreaking theory on  "gut microbiota-derived enzymes and their metabolites cross-kingdom  regulation of host metabolic homeostasis and imbalance". His major  contributions include:

1.  Identifying a series of novel gut microbiota-derived metabolites such  as succinylated cholic acid, tryptophan-cholic acid, and an unreported  skeleton bile acid named ditail-BA (DTB), constructing an artificial  intelligence (AI)-assisted workflow for mining microbial specific  synthases, and uncovering orphan receptors including MRGPRE as new bile  acid receptors—revealing new targets for metabolic diseases.

2.  Establishing an enzyme activity-screening platform for discovering  microbial enzymes, proposing the new concept of "gut microbial-host  isozymes", and revealing multiple isozymes including microbial DPP4 and  nicotine-degrading enzyme NicX, providing new breakthroughs for  precision treatment of metabolic disorders.

This  body of work focuses on novel microbial metabolite synthases and their  direct host receptors, elucidating the "Microbial Enzyme - Metabolite -  Host Receptor" regulatory axis, and enabling cross-kingdom precision  intervention in metabolic diseases. It carries significant theoretical  innovation and commercialization potential.

Professor  Jiang has published over 50 papers as corresponding (or  co-corresponding) author in top-tier journals including Science (2025a,  2025b, 2023), Cell (2025a, 2025b, 2024), and Nature (2025, 2022), among  which 12 were highlighted in dedicated commentaries in journals such as  Cell and Science, and 13 were listed as ESI Highly Cited Papers.

He  has received numerous prestigious awards, including China's Top 10 Life  Science Research Advances (twice), China's Top 10 Science and  Technology Advances in Universities, the First Class Prize of the  Beijing Natural Science Award, the Xplorer Prize, the Tan Jiazhen Life  Science Innovation Award, and the China Youth Science and Technology  Award. He has presided over major research programs such as integration  project and key project of the National Natural Science Foundation of  China, as well as the National Key R&D Program of China. He also  serves as Vice President of the Biophysical Society of China, President  of the Beijing Society for Immunology, and Editorial Board Member of the  journal Cell Metabolism, among other roles.

Representative Publications：

(1) Ding, Y.^#, Luo, X. ^#, Guo, J. ^#, Xing, B. ^#, Lin, H. ^#, Ma, H., Wang, Y., Li, M., Ye, C., Yan, S., Lin, K., Zhang, J., Zhuo, Y., Nie, Q., Yang, D., Zhang, Z., Pang, Y., Wang, K.^*, Ma, M.^*, Lai, L.^* and Jiang, C. T.^* (2025). Identification of gut microbial bile acid metabolic enzymes via an AI-assisted pipeline. Cell 188, 6012-6027.

(2) Lin, J. ^#, Nie, Q. ^#, Cheng, J. ^#, Zhong, Y. N. ^#, Zhang, T. ^#, Zhang, X. ^#, Ge, X. ^#, Ding, Y. ^#,  Niu, C., Gao, Y., Wang, K., Gao, M., Wang, X., Chen, W., Yun, C., Ye,  C., Xu, J., Shaoyong, W., Zhang, L., Shang, P., Luo, X., Zhang, Z.,  Zheng, X., Sha, X., Zhang, J., Nie, S., Zhang, X., Ren, F., Liu, H.,  Dong, E., Yu, X.^*, Ji, L.^*, Pang, Y.^*, Sun, J.^* and Jiang, C. T.^*  (2025). A microbial amino-acid-conjugated bile acid, tryptophan-cholic  acid, improves glucose homeostasis via the orphan receptor MRGPRE. Cell 188, 4530-4548.

(3) Zhou, S.^#, Li, M. ^#, Wang, P. ^#, Guo, C., Zhang, J., Luo, X., Fan, Y. C., Chen, E. Q., Qi, X., Chen, J., Ye, L., Yuan, H. Y., Yin, W. B., Wang, K.^*, Zheng, M. H.^*, Pang, Y.^*, Qiao, J.^*, and Jiang, C. T.^* (2025). A symbiotic filamentous gut fungus ameliorates MASH via a secondary metabolite-CerS6-ceramide axis. Science 388, eadp5540.

(4) Nie, Q.^#, Luo, X.^#, Wang, K.^#, Ding, Y.^#, Jia, S.^#,  Zhao, Q., Li, M., Zhang, J., Zhuo, Y., Lin, J., Guo, C., Zhang, Z.,  Liu, H., Zeng, G., You, J., Sun, L., Lu, H., Ma, M., Jia, Y.^*, Zheng, M.^*, Pang, Y.^*, Qiao, J.^* and Jiang, C. T.^* (2024). Gut symbionts alleviate MASH through a secondary bile acid biosynthetic pathway. Cell 187, 2717-2734.

(5) Wang, K.^#, Zhang, Z.^#, Hang, J.^#, Liu, J.^#, Guo, F.^#,  Ding, Y., Li, M., Nie, Q., Lin, J., Zhuo, Y., Sun, L., Luo, X., Zhong,  Q., Ye, C., Yun, C., Zhang, Y., Wang, J., Bao, R., Pang, Y., Wang, G.^*, Gonzalez, F.^*, Lei, X.^*, Qiao, J.^* and Jiang, C. T.^* (2023). Microbial-host-isozyme analyses reveal microbial DPP4 as a potential antidiabetic target. Science 381, eadd5787.

(6) Chen, B.^#, Sun, L.^#, Zeng, G.^#, Shen, Z.^#, Wang, K.^#, Yin, L.^#,  Xu, F., Wang, P., Ding, Y., Nie, Q., Wu, Q., Zhang, Z., Xia, J., Lin,  J., Luo, Y., Cai, J., Krausz, K. W., Zheng, R., Xue, Y., Zheng, M.^*, Li, Y.^*, Yu, C.^*, Gonzalez, F.^* and Jiang, C. T.^* (2022). Gut bacteria alleviate smoking-related NASH by degrading gut nicotine. Nature 610, 562-568.

(7) Lin, H.^#, Ma, C.^#, Cai, K.^#, Guo, L.^#, Wang, X.^#, Lv, L.^#, Zhang, C.^#, Lin, J.^#,  Zhang, D., Ye, C., Wang, T., Huang, S., Han, J., Zhang, Z., Gao, J.,  Zhang, M., Pu, Z., Li, F., Guo, Y., Zhou, X., Qin, C., Yi, F., Yu, X.^*, Kong, W.^*, Jiang, C. T.^* and Sun, J.^* (2025). Metabolic signaling of ceramides through the FPR2 receptor inhibits adipocyte thermogenesis. Science 388, eado4188.

(8) Zhang, S.^#, Lin, H.^#, Wang, J.^#, Rui, J.^#, Wang, T.^#, Cai, Z.^#, Huang, S.^#,  Gao, Y., Ma, T., Fan, R., Dai, R., Li, Z., Jia, Y., Chen, Q., He, H.,  Tan, J., Zhu, S., Gu, R., Dong, Z., Li, M., Xie, E., Fu, Y., Zheng, J.^*, Jiang, C. T.^*, Sun, J.^* and Kong, W.^* (2025). Sensing Ceramides by CYSLTR2 and P2RY6 to Aggravate Atherosclerosis. Nature 641, 476-485.

(9) Wu, Q.^#, Liang, X.^#, Wang, K.^#, Lin, J., Wang, X., Wang, P., Zhang, Y., Nie, Q., Liu, H., Zhang, Z., Liu, J., Pang, Y. L., Jiang, C. T.*. (2021) Intestinal hypoxia-inducible factor 2α regulates lactate levels to shape the gut microbiome and alter thermogenesis. Cell Metabolism 33, 1988-2003.

(10) Sun, L.^#, Xie, C.^#, Wang, G.^#, Wu, Y.^#,  Wu, Q., Wang, X., Liu, J., Deng, Y., Xia, J., Chen, B., Zhang, S., Yun,  C., Lian, G., Zhang, X., Zhang, H., Bisson, W. H., Shi, J., Gao, X.,  Ge, P., Liu, C., Krausz, K. W., Nichols, R. G., Cai, J., Rimal, B.,  Patterson, A. D., Wang, X., Gonzalez, F. J., Jiang, C. T.*.(2018) Gut microbiota and intestinal FXR mediate the clinical benefits of metformin. Nature Medicine 24, 1919-1929.

Student Supervision:

He  has supervised 13 doctoral students, 3 master's students, and 9  postdoctoral fellows to completion. Among them, 14 now hold faculty  positions at universities or research institutes such as Peking  University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of  Medical Sciences (including 8 as professors or research fellows, 4 as  associate professors or associate research fellows, and 2 as lecturers  or assistant research fellows).