Professor Yong Li

Dr Li is the Professor (Conjoint) in the Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney; a Principal Scientific Officer at St George Hospital,  the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District (SESLHD); and Director of Cancer Research Laboratory at Cancer Care Centre. He is an established cancer researcher, with expertise in cancer biomarker discovery, cancer biology, radiation biology, targeted cancer therapy and cancer metastasis. He was awarded an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (Level 2) in 2010-2014.

Professor Li obtained his Bachelor of Medicine (B.M) degree in 1987 and Master of Science (MSc) degree in 1992 from the Henan Medical University, China. He obtained his PhD. degree in Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia, in 2000.  After two years of Postdoctoral study at UNSW, he was awarded the US Department Defence Prostate Cancer Research New Investigate Award in 2003 and then became an independent investigator.

Professor Li has a career total of 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals ( 9000 google citations) since 2000.  His publications include the high impact journals, such as “Blood”, “Journal of Biological Chemistry”, “Clinical Cancer Research”, “Medicinal Research Reviews”, “Cancer and Metastasis Reviews”, “British Journal of Cancer” and “International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics”, “Theranostics”, "Molecular Cancer", "Advanced Materials" and Advanced Science". He is the senior/corresponding author in most of his publications. 150 conference abstracts have been presented at international and national conferences. His google h-index is 59 and Google i10 index is 107.

Professor Li has attracted 7.2 million AU$ from different funding sources including NHMRC, ARC, US Department Defence, Cancer Institute NSW, and Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and Prostate and Breast Cancer Foundation (PBCF) as the principal investigator. Noticeably, he was awarded the best Biomedical Research Award-NHMRC Achievement Award in 2010. He currently serves on the Associate Editor of World Journal of Cancer Research (USA), and on the editorial board of the Open Biomarker Journal (USA). and the Board member of Journal of National Cancer Centre.

Professor Li has supervised 15 PhD students as the principal supervisor (12) or co-supervisor (3). He has supervised 11 PhD students to completion. He has successfully supervised 7 ILP/Honor students. His PhD students have published in leading international peer-reviewed journals (65 papers) and presented at national and international conferences (70). His PhD students have been awarded 12 travel grants, 3 international scholarships and 6 UNSW research excellence awards.

He is an active member of American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (USA), Chemistry in Cancer Research (USA), Cancer Metastasis Society (USA), International Cancer Microenvironment Society (USA), Australian Society of Medical Research, and Australian Prostate Cancer Collaboration as well as Member of postgraduate review committee at St George Clinical School. He is the Honorary President of Australian Association of Chinese Biomedical Scientists (AACBS) since 2020.

Research Interests:

His current interest research areas include: a) To investigate novel biomarkers from extracellular vesicles (EVs) of human body fluids and tissues, cancer cell lines and animal models for cancer diagnosis and monitoring cancer progression (prostate and breast cancer) using liquid biopsy; b). To investigate the mechanisms of prostate and breast cancer metastasis and chemo/radio-resistance associated with tumour microenvironment, cancer stem cells and EMT and signaling pathways; c): To use targeted cancer therapy, immunotherapy, radiotherapy and combination therapy to control metastatic prostate cancer, breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

Broad Research Areas:
Cancer, Proteomics, Genomics, Lipidomics, Extracellular Vesicles, Liquid biopsy, Cancer Stem Cells, Tumour Microenvironment, Radiation Biology, Cancer Biology, Urology, Cancer biochemistry, Immunotherapy

Qualifications:
BM, MSc, MD, PhD

Society Memberships & Professional Activities:
American Association for Cancer Research, Member of Chemistry in Cancer Research, USA, Member of Cancer Metastasis Society, USA, Australian Society of Medical Research, Fellow of the Cancer Institute NSW, Genitourinary Oncology Group, Australian Prostate Cancer Collaboration, Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, Cure Cancer Australia Foundation Teaching & Supervision

Specific Research Keywords:
Prostate cancer, Breast cancer, Ovarian Cancer, Cancer stem cell, Metastasis, Biomarker, Radiation treatment, Combination therapy, Radioresistance, Chemoresistance, Animal model, Liquid biopsy, Oncology, Exosome, Immunotherapy