Research groups
Biography
I graduated with an MBBS-PhD degree from Imperial College School of Medicine in 2018 with Distinctions in Medical Sciences, Clinical Science and Clinical Practice. My PhD was jointly awarded from Imperial College London and the University of Hong Kong with a thesis titled "Clinicopathological investigations of the cholinergic basal forebrain in Lewy body disorders and ageing".
I completed my foundation training at the North West of England Foundation School in Merseyside before being awarded an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship in Neurology at the University of Oxford. During my internal medicine training, I completed the membership exam for the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP).
Following completion of the Integrated Cellular Pathology Training (ICPT) in general histopathology at the Thames Valley Deanery, I entered higher specialty training in diagnostic neuropathology. I was subsequently appointed as a Clinical Lecturer funded by the UK Dementia Research Institute (UKDRI), where I work with Prof Laura Parkkinen within the Translational Neuropathology Group at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford.
I remain an honorary specialty registrar in diagnostic neuropathology at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and am currently co-representative for histopathology trainees at the Trainees' Advisory Committee (TAC) for Thames Valley Deanery.
I am also an honorary Clinical Research Fellow at the Imperial College London, where I have close research collaboration with the Department of Brain Sciences and the Parkinson's UK Brain Bank.
Alan King Lun Liu
MBBS PhD MRCP(UK)
Clinical Lecturer and Honorary Specialty Registrar in Diagnostic Neuropathology
Research interests
- Neuropathology of Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia
- Non-motor and non-dopaminergic aspects of Lewy body disorders
- The cholinergic system in neurodegenerative diseases
- Development and implementation of novel research techniques for translational neuropathology
Technical expertise
- Dissection, histological processing and immunohistochemistry of human post-mortem brain tissues
- Neuropathological assessment of neurodegenerative disease
- Tissue clearing for three-dimensional visualisation of human and rodent brain tissues
- Confocal microscopy
Current research projects
Investigating the morphology, distribution and burden of astrocytic alpha-synuclein aggregation in Parkinson’s disease and incidental Lewy body disease.
Revisiting the pathological staging of Parkinson’s disease using novel antibodies targeting different epitope sites and post-translational modifications of alpha-synuclein.
Optimisation of spatial transcriptomics on post-mortem human brain tissues to explore the role of regional transcriptomic changes on selective vulnerability of neuron and glial cells in Lewy body disorders.