主要从事蛋白质翻译后修饰的化学生物学研究，蛋白质的化学全合成的新型连接方法研究；目前主持国家自然科学基金一项；入选福建省高层次人才B类(海外)人才。

代表论文：

1) Liu, J. A.; Li, Y. F.; Deol, K. K.; Strieter, E.* "Synthesis of Branched Tri-Ubiquitin Active-Site Directed Probes ". Org. Lett. 2019, 21 (17), 6790-6794. 

2) Shiguro, T.^＃; Amomoto, Y.^＃; Tanabe, K.^＃; Liu, J. A.^＃; Kajino, H.; Fujimura, A.; Aoi, Y.; Osakabe, A; Horikoshi, N.; Kurumizaka, H.; Yamatsugu, K.; Kawashima, S.*; Kanai, M.* "Synthetic Chromatin Acylation by an Artificial Catalyst System". Chem, 2017, 2, 840-859.(^＃These authors contributed equally to this work.)

3) Liu, J. A.; Guo, X. P.; Liang, S.; An, F.; Shen, H. Y.; Xu, Y. J. "Regioselective Synthesis of 5'-Amino Acid Esters of Some Nucleosides via Orthogonal Protecting Protocol", Tetrahedron, 2015, 71, 1409-1412.  

4) Tanabe, K.; Liu, J. A.; Kato, D.; Kurumizaka, H.; Yamatsugu, K.; Kanai, M.*; Kawashima, S.* "LC–MS/MS-based quantitative study of the acyl group- and site-selectivity of human sirtuins to acylated nucleosomes". Sci. Rep. 2018, 8, 2656. 

5) Yamatsugu, K.; Furuta, M.; Xi, S. Q.; Amamoto, Y.; Liu, J. A.; Kawashima, S.; Kanai, M.* "Kinetic analyses and structure-activity relationship studies of synthetic lysine acetylation catalysts". Bioorg. Med. Chem. 2018, 26, 5359-5367.