Zhongwei Li, PhD

Title(s)Assistant Professor of Medicine and Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine
SchoolKeck School of Medicine of Usc
Address1937 Hospital Place
Off Campus
Los Angeles CA 90031
vCardDownload vCard

    Collapse Biography 
    Collapse Education and Training
    Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CaliforniaPostdoc08/2017Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine
    Tsinghua University, Beijing, ChinaPhD07/2012Molecular Cell Biology
    Sichuan University, Chengdu, ChinaBS07/2007Biotechnology
    Collapse Awards and Honors
    NIH2022NIH Director's New Innovator Award
    University of Southern California2022"Heros Among Us" Medal
    School of Life Sciences of Tsinghua University2021Representative Alumni Award
    Keck School of Medicine of USC2019Dean's Pilot Award
    Wright Foundation2018Wright Foundation Pilot Award
    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC)2013Top 100 Influential Research Articles in China (2012)
    Johnson & Johnson2012"Johnson & Johnson Asia Outstanding Thesis Award in Bio-tech", 1st Prize
    Ray Wu Memorial Fund2012Ray Wu Prize
    City of Beijing2012Outstanding Ph.D. Graduate Award
    Tsinghua University2012Outstanding Ph.D. Graduate Award
    Tsinghua University2012Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis Award
    Sichuan University2007Outstanding Undergraduate Award
    Sichuan University2007Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Award

    Collapse Overview 
    Collapse Overview
    Trained as a stem cell biologist, Dr. Zhongwei Li has been using mouse models, human pluripotent stem cells, kidney progenitor cells, and kidney organoids as model systems to study stem cell biology, organ regeneration, and disease modeling for more than 17 years. As a graduate student in Dr. Ye-Guang Chen’s lab at Tsinghua University (2007-2012), he studied the molecular mechanisms of how different signaling pathways coordinate to determine pluripotent stem cell fates. Dr. Li identified a novel signaling cascade, BMP/Smad/DUSP9/ERK, essential in the crosstalk and intracellular integration of extrinsic signals (LIF and BMP) to regulate pluripotent stem cell fates (Li et al., Cell Stem Cell, 2012). As a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte's lab at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (2012-2017), he focused on kidney regeneration and developed a three-dimensional culture system which enabled, for the first time, the long-term expansion of primary nephron progenitor cells, which can further generate nephrons, the functional units of the kidney, in a nephron organoid model in vitro and in a chimeric mouse model in vivo (Li et al., Cell Stem Cell, 2016). As an assistant professor at USC (2017-present), his long-term research goal is to engineer a synthetic kidney from stem cells as an alternative off-the-shelf source for kidney transplantation (funded by NIH Director’s New Innovator Award). Dr. Li’s short-term research goal is to develop next-generation mature and functional kidney organoid models for kidney disease modeling and drug discovery (Zeng et al., Nature Communications, 2021; Huang et al., Cell Stem Cell, 2024). His research combines state-of-the-art stem cell technologies, genome editing tools, and bioengineering approaches to achieve these goals. Dr. Li’s lab integrates research strategies from a broad range of disciplines including molecular biology, cell biology, developmental biology, genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, and bioengineering.
    Collapse Websites

    Collapse Featured Content 
    Collapse Twitter

    Collapse Bibliographic 
    Collapse Publications
    Publications listed below are automatically derived from MEDLINE/PubMed and other sources, which might result in incorrect or missing publications. Researchers can login to make corrections and additions, or contact us for help. to make corrections and additions.
    Newest   |   Oldest   |   Most Cited   |   Most Discussed   |   Timeline   |   Field Summary   |   Plain Text
    Altmetrics Details PMC Citations indicate the number of times the publication was cited by articles in PubMed Central, and the Altmetric score represents citations in news articles and social media. (Note that publications are often cited in additional ways that are not shown here.) Fields are based on how the National Library of Medicine (NLM) classifies the publication's journal and might not represent the specific topic of the publication. Translation tags are based on the publication type and the MeSH terms NLM assigns to the publication. Some publications (especially newer ones and publications not in PubMed) might not yet be assigned Field or Translation tags.) Click a Field or Translation tag to filter the publications.
    1. Building a kidney tree: Functional collecting duct from human pluripotent stem cells. Dev Cell. 2022 10 10; 57(19):2251-2253. Li Z, Lindström NO. PMID: 36220079.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    2. Approaches to kidney replacement therapies-opportunities and challenges. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022; 10:953408. Huang B, Zeng Z, Zhang CC, Schreiber ME, Li Z. PMID: 35982852; PMCID: PMC9380013.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 2  
    3. Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein forms nuclear condensates and regulates alternative splicing. Nat Commun. 2022 06 25; 13(1):3646. Yuan B, Zhou X, Suzuki K, Ramos-Mandujano G, Wang M, Tehseen M, Cortés-Medina LV, Moresco JJ, Dunn S, Hernandez-Benitez R, Hishida T, Kim NY, Andijani MM, Bi C, Ku M, Takahashi Y, Xu J, Qiu J, Huang L, Benner C, Aizawa E, Qu J, Liu GH, Li Z, Yi F, Ghosheh Y, Shao C, Shokhirev M, Comoli P, Frassoni F, Yates JR, Fu XD, Esteban CR, Hamdan S, Li M, Izpisua Belmonte JC. PMID: 35752626; PMCID: PMC9233711.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 6     Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    4. Generation of patterned kidney organoids that recapitulate the adult kidney collecting duct system from expandable ureteric bud progenitors. Nat Commun. 2021 06 15; 12(1):3641. Zeng Z, Huang B, Parvez RK, Li Y, Chen J, Vonk AC, Thornton ME, Patel T, Rutledge EA, Kim AD, Yu J, Grubbs BH, McMahon JA, Pastor-Soler NM, Hallows KR, McMahon AP, Li Z. PMID: 34131121; PMCID: PMC8206157.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 30     Fields:    Translation:HumansAnimalsCells
    5. A Modular Differentiation System Maps Multiple Human Kidney Lineages from Pluripotent Stem Cells. Cell Rep. 2020 04 07; 31(1):107476. Tsujimoto H, Kasahara T, Sueta SI, Araoka T, Sakamoto S, Okada C, Mae SI, Nakajima T, Okamoto N, Taura D, Nasu M, Shimizu T, Ryosaka M, Li Z, Sone M, Ikeya M, Watanabe A, Osafune K. PMID: 32268094.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 38     Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    6. Epigenetic regulation of kidney progenitor cells. Stem Cells Transl Med. 2020 Jun; 9(6):655-660. Huang B, Liu Z, Vonk A, Zeng Z, Li Z. PMID: 32163228; PMCID: PMC7214665.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 9     Fields:    Translation:HumansAnimalsCells
    7. Kidney-in-a-lymph node: A novel organogenesis assay to model human renal development and test nephron progenitor cell fates. J Tissue Eng Regen Med. 2019 09; 13(9):1724-1731. Francipane MG, Han B, Oxburgh L, Sims-Lucas S, Li Z, Lagasse E. PMID: 31267702; PMCID: PMC7099580.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 7     Fields:    Translation:HumansAnimalsCells
    8. Gene Editing in 3D Cultured Nephron Progenitor Cell Lines. Methods Mol Biol. 2019; 1926:151-159. Li Z, Araoka T, Belmonte JCI. PMID: 30742270.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 3     Fields:    Translation:AnimalsCells
    9. Derivation of Pluripotent Stem Cells with In Vivo Embryonic and Extraembryonic Potency. Cell. 2017 04 06; 169(2):243-257.e25. Yang Y, Liu B, Xu J, Wang J, Wu J, Shi C, Xu Y, Dong J, Wang C, Lai W, Zhu J, Xiong L, Zhu D, Li X, Yang W, Yamauchi T, Sugawara A, Li Z, Sun F, Li X, Li C, He A, Du Y, Wang T, Zhao C, Li H, Chi X, Zhang H, Liu Y, Li C, Duo S, Yin M, Shen H, Belmonte JCI, Deng H. PMID: 28388409; PMCID: PMC5679268.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 213     Fields:    Translation:HumansAnimalsCells
    10. Activin/Smad2-induced Histone H3 Lys-27 Trimethylation (H3K27me3) Reduction Is Crucial to Initiate Mesendoderm Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells. J Biol Chem. 2017 01 27; 292(4):1339-1350. Wang L, Xu X, Cao Y, Li Z, Cheng H, Zhu G, Duan F, Na J, Han JJ, Chen YG. PMID: 27965357; PMCID: PMC5270477.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 17     Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    11. 3D Culture Supports Long-Term Expansion of Mouse and Human Nephrogenic Progenitors. Cell Stem Cell. 2016 10 06; 19(4):516-529. Li Z, Araoka T, Wu J, Liao HK, Li M, Lazo M, Zhou B, Sui Y, Wu MZ, Tamura I, Xia Y, Beyret E, Matsusaka T, Pastan I, Rodriguez Esteban C, Guillen I, Guillen P, Campistol JM, Izpisua Belmonte JC. PMID: 27570066; PMCID: PMC7832086.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 92     Fields:    Translation:HumansAnimalsCells
    12. Activin Regulates Self-renewal and Differentiation of Trophoblast Stem Cells by Down-regulating the X Chromosome Gene Bcor. J Biol Chem. 2015 Sep 04; 290(36):22019-29. Zhu G, Fei T, Li Z, Yan X, Chen YG. PMID: 26221038; PMCID: PMC4571955.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 3     Fields:    Translation:HumansAnimalsCells
    13. An alternative pluripotent state confers interspecies chimaeric competency. Nature. 2015 May 21; 521(7552):316-21. Wu J, Okamura D, Li M, Suzuki K, Luo C, Ma L, He Y, Li Z, Benner C, Tamura I, Krause MN, Nery JR, Du T, Zhang Z, Hishida T, Takahashi Y, Aizawa E, Kim NY, Lajara J, Guillen P, Campistol JM, Esteban CR, Ross PJ, Saghatelian A, Ren B, Ecker JR, Izpisua Belmonte JC. PMID: 25945737; PMCID: PMC5278765.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 113     Fields:    Translation:HumansAnimalsCells
    14. BMP induces cochlin expression to facilitate self-renewal and suppress neural differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells. J Biol Chem. 2013 Mar 22; 288(12):8053-8060. Zhang J, Fei T, Li Z, Zhu G, Wang L, Chen YG. PMID: 23344953; PMCID: PMC3605624.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 16     Fields:    Translation:HumansAnimalsCells
    15. TGF-β in Human Disease (Chapter 2). 2013. Li Z, Huylebroeck D, Chen YG. View Publication.
    16. Functions of BMP signaling in embryonic stem cell fate determination. Exp Cell Res. 2013 Jan 15; 319(2):113-9. Li Z, Chen YG. PMID: 23051821.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 14     Fields:    Translation:HumansAnimalsCells
    17. Fine-tune of intrinsic ERK activity by extrinsic BMP signaling in mouse embryonic stem cells. Protein Cell. 2012 Jun; 3(6):401-4. Li Z, Chen YG. PMID: 22528752; PMCID: PMC4875488.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 3     Fields:    Translation:HumansAnimalsCells
    18. Where PI3K/Akt meets Smads: the crosstalk determines human embryonic stem cell fate. Cell Stem Cell. 2012 Mar 02; 10(3):231-2. Chen YG, Li Z, Wang XF. PMID: 22385648; PMCID: PMC3586792.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 17     Fields:    
    19. BMP4 Signaling Acts via dual-specificity phosphatase 9 to control ERK activity in mouse embryonic stem cells. Cell Stem Cell. 2012 Feb 03; 10(2):171-82. Li Z, Fei T, Zhang J, Zhu G, Wang L, Lu D, Chi X, Teng Y, Hou N, Yang X, Zhang H, Han JD, Chen YG. PMID: 22305567.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 70     Fields:    Translation:HumansAnimalsCells
    20. Smad2 mediates Activin/Nodal signaling in mesendoderm differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells. Cell Res. 2010 Dec; 20(12):1306-18. Fei T, Zhu S, Xia K, Zhang J, Li Z, Han JD, Chen YG. PMID: 21079647.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 39     Fields:    Translation:AnimalsCells
    21. Genome-wide mapping of SMAD target genes reveals the role of BMP signaling in embryonic stem cell fate determination. Genome Res. 2010 Jan; 20(1):36-44. Fei T, Xia K, Li Z, Zhou B, Zhu S, Chen H, Zhang J, Chen Z, Xiao H, Han JD, Chen YG. PMID: 19926752; PMCID: PMC2798829.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 62     Fields:    Translation:AnimalsCells
    Zhongwei's Networks
    Concepts (110)
    Derived automatically from this person's publications.
    _
    Co-Authors (8)
    People in Profiles who have published with this person.
    _
    Similar People (60)
    People who share similar concepts with this person.
    _
    Same Department
    Search Department
    _