Ligen Yu1, Jin Ye Yeo2
1Office of Data and Analytics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; 2TCR Editorial Office, AME Publishing Company
Correspondence to: Jin Ye Yeo. TCR Editorial Office, AME Publishing Company. Email: tcr@amepc.org
This interview can be cited as: Yu L, Yeo JY. Meeting the Expert of TCR: Dr. Ligen Yu. Transl Cancer Res. 2024. https://tcr.amegroups.org/post/view/meet-the-expert-of-tcr-dr-ligen-yu.
Expert introduction
Dr. Ligen Yu (Figure 1) is the Assistant Director of the Office of Data and Analytics in Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He received his PhD degrees in materials science and engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. He worked as associate professor in Beihang University, Beijing, China before joining NTU in 2000. He has rediscovered the Luigi Cornaro diet of Eat-but-Little as an effective and sustainable treatment for obesity and anorexia nervosa. He also discovered that the misinterpretation of hunger pangs as an indicator for illness, and the subsequent overeating to alleviate hunger pangs being the main cause of obesity. His work on gut microbiota focuses on the vast number of diverse genes of the gut microbiome as the indispensable source of essential nutrients for the human body and harvested through ingesting of microorganisms by various gut cells like epithelial cells, phagocytes and immune cells through endocytosis (the “infection” process) followed by programmed cell death like apoptosis of these gut cells.
Figure 1 Dr. Ligen Yu
Interview
TCR: What drove you into the field of bibliometrics analysis?
Dr. Yu: My work on bibliometric analysis is driven by the university senior management’s needs. I started doing bibliometrics analysis in 2002. The Research Office of NTU needed to know the research performance of the whole university as well as each academic staff, and I helped the Office in preparing the data.
TCR: How has bibliometrics analysis methods evolved over the years? What are some examples that impacted your field(s) of research?
Dr. Yu: This is a big topic and I am not able to give an overview. For my personal experience, I started checking the publications and citations of NTU academic staff, learned some analysis tools like VoSViewer, and analytic databases like InCites by Clarivate and SciVal by Elsevier. I use VoSViewer and SciVal very frequently in my daily office work.
TCR: Could you provide an overview of the recent publications in gut microbiota research? Are there any articles that stood out to you?
Dr. Yu: I would like to use two screenshots from SciVal (Figures 2,3) to summarize the recent research in gut microbiota.
Figure 2 Screenshot from SciVal summarizing recent research in gut microbiota
Figure 3 Keyphrase analysis of recent research in gut microbiota
I am impressed by two papers published by Prof. Bruce R. Levin from Emory University, USA that define the real relationship between the human body and the microbiota (1,2).
TCR: What specific aspects of gut microbiota research do you believe have been overlooked or received insufficient attention?
Dr. Yu: Microbiota as nutrition source is largely neglected (3-5). For some mammals and herbivores such as cows and sheep who feed on grass, people have always wondered how they rely solely on grass for their nutrition and survival. This idea is not completely correct as what they are ingesting is actually bacteria. These animals have chambers in their stomach lumen to ferment the grass and grow the bacteria in the lumen, which the bacteria are subsequently transported to a different chamber and digested by gastric acids into amino acids. Hence, grass by itself does not contain much proteins or nutritional value; the proteins are all from the bacteria.
TCR: How did you get to know about the Luigi Cornaro diet, and what inspired you to start this diet? Is this decision in any way, related to your research on gut microbiota?
Dr. Yu: I adopted the Luigi Cornaro diet because of my anorexia nervosa condition after massive weight loss. My research on gut microbiota is trying to answer the question why Luigi Cornaro diet worked for me, but not for others. In one of my works, I investigated why fermented food is healthy to human body and is an essential part of the Luigi Cornaro diet (6).
TCR: Looking back, could you share with us a memorable or most interesting project you have embarked on?
Dr. Yu: The microbiota research and the ResearchGate discussion line on nutrition for cow (7).
TCR: What are some projects you are currently involved in, and what goals do you hope to achieve with these projects?
Dr. Yu: I am working on a Thematic Issue on “Overnutrition, Lipotoxicity and Atherosclerosis” for Current Medicinal Chemistry, and I hope to get some fundamental understanding of the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis (8).
TCR: As an author and collaborator, what are some goals you hope to achieve with TCR?
Dr. Yu: I hope to work with TCR to increase the popularity of TCR among the readers and using my knowledge to benefit the readers of TCR.
Reference
- Levin BR, Antia R. Why we don't get sick: The within-host population dynamics of bacterial infections. Science. 2001; 292(5519): 1112-1115.
- Levin BR, Baquero F, Ankomah PP, et al. Phagocytes, Antibiotics, and Self-Limiting Bacterial Infections. Trends Microbiol. 2017;25(11):878-892.
- Yu L. Restoring Good Health in Elderly with Diverse Gut Microbiome and Food Intake Restriction to Combat COVID-19. Indian J Microbiol. 2021;61(1):104-107.
- Yu L. Cell Self-Destruction (Programmed Cell Death), Immunonutrition and Metabolism. Biology. 2023; 12(7):949.
- Cammack KM, Austin KJ, Lamberson WR, et al. Ruminant Nutrition Symposium: Tiny but mighty: the role of the rumen microbes in livestock production. J. Anim. Sci. 2018; 96(2), 752-770.
- Yu BW, Yu BX, Yu LG. Restore gut homeostasis and healthy weight for an anorexia nervosa patient by the Luigi Cornaro diet – a case report. Institute of Materials (East Asia), Singapore, 2018. Available online: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329915614
- How a cow gets all the nutrients by just eating grass? Available online: https://www.researchgate.net/post/How-a-cow-gets-all-the-nutrients-by-just-eating-grass
- Ligen Yu. Overnutrition, lipotoxicity and atherosclerosis - tentative outline of thematic issue for current medicinal chemistry. Published online 2024. Available online: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379809279