Source: Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center

Recently, Professor LI Xuri, an internationally renowned vascular and molecular biologist, together with her research team, has returned to China from USA to join the State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center (ZOC), Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) in Guangzhou.

Dr. LIU Yizhi, Director of ZOC, and the leadership of Sun Yat-sen University highly value Professor Li’s return and embraced Dr. Li and her team ardently. Long before Professor Li’s arrival, Director LIU Yizhi and his colleagues put in great effort to ensure that Professor Li and her team have adequate work and living environment so that they can focus on science and start their research as soon as possible. Currently, Professor Li and her team have started working at the ZOC. Guiding many graduate students and research staff, Professor Li hopes to build a world-class platform at the ZOC for talented researchers to learn and perform high-level biomedical research and to enhance the scientific environment as a whole.

Before joining ZOC, SYSU, Professor Li was a Principal Investigator, Chief of the Vascular Neurobiology Unit at the National Eye Institute (NEI), National Institutes of Health (NIH) in USA during 2005-2012. During her postdoctoral work in Professor Ulf Eriksson laboratory at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, Dr. Li made critical contribution to the discovery of two novel PDGFs, PDGF-C and PDGF-D. These works were published in the journal of Nature Cell Biology accompanied by a featured News & Views reporting that this discovery was a major historical breakthrough in about thirty years in the field of growth factor biology.

During the past years, Professor Li and her team conducted in-depth research on PDGF-C, PDGF-D and VEGF-B. As a first or corresponding author, Professor Li published numerous important research articles in top-rank journals, such as Nature Cell Biology, Cell Rep, J Clin Invest, J Exp Med, PNAS, Cancer Res, Cell Res, etc. Her work has been highly recognized by the international scientific community, and led to 5 international patents and many patent applications.

Dr. TANG Zhongshu, the key member and mainstay of Professor Li’s team, has joined ZOC earlier as a Principal Investigator and PhD supervisor via the SYSU’s "Hundred Talents" program.

At the ZOC, SYSU, Professor LI Xuri and her team will continue to perform in-depth research on ocular angiogenesis, ocular neurovascular protection and interaction, and ocular stem cell, etc. The arrival of Professor Li and her team will greatly promote the research and development of ZOC and speed up the process of ZOC’s internationalization. It will particularly boost the worldwide influence of ZOC in the fields of growth factor biology, angiogenesis, ocular vascular diseases, and drug development.