On 23rd April, 2019, Prof. Xin-dong Liu of Chinese Army Medical University was invited to  MRI to conduct an academic report titled "Molecular and epigenetic control of T cell dysfunction". His report mainly introduces the transcription factor NR4A1 plays a key negative regulatory role in both autoimmune diseases and tumor immunity. NR4A1 is highly expressed in Tolerant T cell. On the one hand, it inhibits the expression of T cell functional molecules by competitively binding ap-1 at the chromatin binding site. On the other hand, NR4A1 promotes the acetylation level of histone (H3K27ac), which triggers the high expression of immune-tolerance related genes, leading to the inactivation of T cells. Professors and students from MRI and other institutes participated in the academic exchanges.

Professor Liu mainly studies the molecular mechanism of T Cell differentiation and its related diseases. His findings of ASCL2, Nur77(NR4A1) as well as other important molecules that regulate T Cell differentiation and functions have been published several times in high-level journals such as Nature, Nature Immunology and Cell Stem Cell. The article has been recommended and commented by F1000 for many times, and the related article has been cited more than 1000 times so far.