NIHBC 10 - CLINICAL CENTER BG RM 7C106
10 CENTER DR
BETHESDA MD 20892
Dr. Li is a Staff Scientist working with Dr. Avi Nath. He got his Ph.D degree from the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and finished postdoc research in Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He joined the Infections of the Nervous System Section in 2011. He helps Dr. Nath to identify new research directions and develops research projects. He also provides experimental design and technical support for other lab members. Dr. Li was trained in the field of molecular biology and biochemistry as well as neuroscience.
Dr. Li is interested in understanding the regulation mechanism of human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) and its role in the pathology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other diseases. HERVs are remnants of ancient retroviral infection of human, and are mostly defective and inactive. However, one subtype of HERVs called HERV-K still has some intact pro-viral genome sequences and open reading frames. They might play important roles in physiological and pathological conditions. Specifically, HERV-K expression was significantly increased in the brain of a subset of ALS patients. In vitro study showed that the expression of whole viral sequence or envelope gene (Env) caused neurotoxicity. A transgenic mouse model expression HERV-K Env in the brain showed motor neuron specific degeneration as well as symptoms mimic ALS disease. Dr. Li is further investigating the HERV-K expression profile through next generation sequencing, and trying to identify ALS associated unique HERV-K chromosomal loci, as well as regulation mechanism at transcript level. He is also studying the neurotoxicity mechanism caused by HERV-K viral proteins, and developing mechanism based therapeutics for potential ALS treatment.
Lee MH, Perl DP, Nair G, Li W, Maric D, Murray H, Dodd SJ, Koretsky AP, Watts JA, Cheung V, Masliah E, Horkayne-Szakaly I, Jones R, Stram MN, Moncur J, Hefti M, Folkerth RD, Nath A. 2020. Microvascular Injury in the Brains of Patients with Covid-19. N Engl J Med doi:10.1056/NEJMc2033369.
Wang T, Medynets M, Johnson KR, Doucet-O'Hare TT, DiSanza B, Li W, Xu Y, Bagnell A, Tyagi R, Sampson K, Malik N, Steiner J, Hadegan A, Kowalak J, O'Malley J, Maric D, Nath A. 2020. Regulation of stem cell function and neuronal differentiation by HERV-K via mTOR pathway. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 117:17842-17853.
Abrams RPM, Yasgar A, Teramoto T, Lee MH, Dorjsuren D, Eastman RT, Malik N, Zakharov AV, Li W, Bachani M, Brimacombe K, Steiner JP, Hall MD, Balasubramanian A, Jadhav A, Padmanabhan R, Simeonov A, Nath A. 2020. Therapeutic candidates for the Zika virus identified by a high-throughput screen for Zika protease inhibitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 117:31365-31375.
J Steiner, M Bachani, N Malik, W Li, J Solis, R Abrams, K Sampson, et al. Zika envelope protein causes toxicity to human neural stem cells and neuronal cultures via GSK3beta. JOURNAL OF NEUROVIROLOGY 2019, 25 (SUPPL 1), S41-S41