Associate Professor of Pathology and Genomic Medicine, Academic Institute
Associate Clinical Member, Research Institute
Houston Methodist
Weill Cornell Medical College
Dr. Li is the associate medical director of the Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory and Associate Professor of Department of Pathology at the Houston Methodist. Prior to joining Houston Methodist in 2018, she was an assistant professor of human genetics and assistant director of the Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Chicago. Dr. Li also received postdoctoral training with Dr. Janet D. Rowley in leukemia research and completed clinical molecular genetics fellowship at the University of Chicago. Dr. Li was board certified in Clinical Molecular Genetics by the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics in 2015.
Dr. Li’s research interest is in understanding the pathological mechanisms of leukemia and lymphoma development and the identification of biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment in leukemia, lymphoma, and other cancers. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed research articles in high-impact journals, including Cancer Cell, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nature Communications, Blood, Leukemia, PNAS, Genome Research, Cancer Research, and others. Dr. Li has received awards and funding from several agencies, including the American Cancer Society, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research.
Dr. Li’s clinical interest is to translate knowledge from basic research to clinical diagnosis, particularly in developing and testing cutting-edge technologies to incorporate advanced sequencing platforms, materials, and techniques to improve the range of genetic and genomic services that can be offered to patients.
Dr. Li serves on the editorial boards of several journals and is an active member of professional organizations including the Association for Molecular Pathology, the American College of Medical Genetics, and the American Society of Hematology. She also serves on the ClinGen Myeloid Malignancy Variant Curation Expert Panel.
The research of Dr. Li’s laboratory is focused on two areas. One is to delineate the underlying pathological mechanism of leukemia and lymphoma through in vitro and in vivo studies of the role of protein coding and non-coding genes. The other is to identify novel genetic and epigenetic biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, and to develop more effective therapeutic strategies to offer to patients.