We are a team of experimental and computational biologists pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the heart. Lab photo gallery »
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine
Assistant Investigator, Texas Heart Institute at Baylor College of Medicine
Dr. Li received his B.S. in Biotechnology from East China Normal University and his Ph.D. in Anatomy and Cell Biology from the University of Iowa. He completed postdoctoral training with Xiang-Dong Fu at the University of California San Diego, where he developed GRID-seq, the first technology for mapping the RNA–chromatin interactome. His research integrates single-cell and spatial multi-omics, 3D genome modeling, and computational biology to study transcriptional regulation and multicellular remodeling in cardiovascular disease. His lab focuses on defining pathogenic cellular niches in congenital and acquired heart failure, with an emphasis on understanding diseased cell states.
Current Members
Xiaotong holds a Master’s degree from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and has a research background spanning oncology, hematology, and computational genomics. She specializes in atlas-level single-cell data integration and analysis. Her current interests focus on applying data science approaches to improve the interpretation of large-scale transcriptomic datasets from diseased human tissues.
Mark is a first-year PhD student in the Genetics and Epigenetics Program of the UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. His previous research focused on genome stability and DNA repair biology. He currently investigates the molecular mechanisms underlying cellular senescence in heart failure.
Xin holds a PhD in Biology from Wuhan University, where she studied glioblastoma heterogeneity and microenvironmental remodeling using single-cell approaches. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Li Lab, where her research integrates spatial multi-omics and mouse models to study atrial tissue microenvironments, chamber-specific remodeling, and mechanisms of ventricular regeneration in cardiac diseases.
Yi is the senior computational lead in the Li Lab. He manages computational pipelines, develops analytical approaches, and supports integrative analyses across multiple research projects. His expertise spans bioinformatics workflow development and single-cell profiling technologies, with a particular interest in tissue immunity. Prior to joining the lab, Yi received training in tumor immunogenomics and led the development of scalable single-cell profiling platforms in the biotechnology industry.