Yong Li

Professor Li graduated in Medicine from the Henan Medical University of China in 1987, and subsequently completed a MSc. degree in Medicine at Henan Medical University, China in 1992. He obtained a Ph.D. degree in Faculty of Medicine in 2000 from the UNSW Sydney, Australia, and then joined the Cancer Care Centre, St George Hospital, UNSW. After three years of Postdoctoral study at St George Hospital, UNSW, he was awarded the US Department Defence Prostate Cancer Research New Investigate Award in 2004 and then became an independent investigator. Professor Li is an established cancer researcher, with expertise in cancer biomarker discovery, radiation biology, targeted cancer therapy and cancer metastasis. He is the Director of Cancer Research Program since 2006. He was promoted to a conjoint Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney since 2020, and a Principal Scientific Officer by the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District (SESLHD) since 2012. He was awarded an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (Level 2) in 2010-2014; and an NHMRC Achievement Award (ranked No.1 in the industry fellow). He has a career total of 140 publications and book chapters (5029 Scopus citations and 6866 google citations) since 1999. He have published papers and in peer-reviewed journals including the high impact journals, “Blood”, “Journal of Biological Chemistry”, “Clinical Cancer Research”, “Medicinal Research Reviews”, “Redox Biology”, “British Journal of Cancer”, “Advanced Science” and “Advanced Materials”. He is the senior/corresponding author in most of his publication. 130 conference abstracts have been presented at international and national conferences. His Scopus h-index is 44 and Google i10 index is 90. His Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) is 2.67 (Global average: 1.0; Australia average: 1.56). In the last 5 years, 80% SJR of his publications is in top 10% Journals. Half (51.4%) of his publications are with international collaboration. Professor Li is an independent investigator and responsible for conducting basic and clinical cancer research both personally and as a team leader; preparing and managing project design, finance, performance, paper reviewing and writing in all aspects of major research projects; collaborating with other researchers or academic staff within the UNSW Sydney or other intrastate/interstate Universities/ Institutions. Prof Li’s current research program is aimed at a): To investigate novel extracellular vesicle (EV) biomarkers from human body fluids for cancer diagnosis and prognosis using liquid biopsy and machine learning model; b): To investigate the mechanisms of cancer metastasis and chemo-/radio-resistance associated with cancer stem cell (CSC), epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and tumour microenvironment (TME); c): To use targeted cancer therapy and combination therapy for cancer treatment. Prof Li’ laboratory employs cell and molecular biology techniques; modern genomic, proteomic and lipidomic techniques and metastatic animal model development as well as IVIS Imaging System for animal monitoring. Prof Li is a well-established cancer researcher, with expertise in cancer biomarker discovery, prostate cancer animal models, radiation biology, cancer signalling pathways, targeted cancer therapy and cancer metastasis and resistance. He has established close links with several industries for commercialization of the identified potential novel cancer biomarkers for diagnosis and therapy, and widely collaborates with domestic and international research groups for cancer diagnosis and treatments. Over the past 10 years, he has attracted 6.7 million AU$ from different funding sources including NHMRC, ARC, US Department Defence, Cancer Institute NSW, and Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and Prostate, UNSW Sydney and Breast Cancer Foundation (PBCF) as the principal investigator. Noticeably, he was awarded the best Medical Research Award-NHMRC Achievement Award in 2010. Since 2006, he has built up his own research team including 3 Post-doctoral Fellow, 2 visiting Fellow, 5 PhD students and 4 clinicians. He currently serves on the Associate Editor of World Journal of Cancer Research (USA), and on the editorial board of the Journal of National Cancer Centre (JNCC) and Extracellular Vesicles and Circulating Nucleic Acids (EVCNA). Prof Li has regularly reviewed national and international grant applications including NHMRC, ARC, Cure Cancer Australian Foundation, Prostate Cancer Charity (UK), Biomedical Research Funding in Scotland and Health Research Board (HRB) in Ireland, Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor’s Innovation Fellowships Scheme, Cancer Research Wales, UK , Austrian Science Fund, Prostate Cancer UK (Prize Fellowship)and Breast Cancer Now, UK. He has trained and mentored 15 PhD students, 7 Independent Learning Program (ILP) students, and 6 Post-doctoral Fellows at UNSW Sydney; 9 Master students at Zhengzhou University China.