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Gang Li, PhD

Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology/The Aging Institute

Gang Li, PhD

Office Location:

Bridgeside Point I
Room 561
100 Technology Drive
Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Contact Information:

Office Telephone: 412-383-3429
Email: lig@pitt.edu

Research Interests

The main research interest in Dr. Li’s lab is to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the contribution of disease-associated functional SNPs to the pathogenesis of, and the susceptibility to age-related diseases. To do so, Dr. Li’s lab has recently developed multiple cutting edge techniques to rapidly identify disease-associated functional SNPs based on GWAS analysis and characterize these functional SNPs by identifying the SNP-bound regulatory proteins that modulate risk gene expression. Currently, Dr. Li’s lab is focusing on studying the role of cellular senescence and ferroptosis (iron-induced cell death) in the pathogenesis of two age-related diseases: atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease. The lab’s goal is to use human genetics as a guide to identify new drug targets and, ultimately, to apply these findings to develop precision medicines for age-related diseases.

Selected Publications:

  1. Ting Wu, Yuwei Wu, Danli Jiang, Wei Sun, Meijuan Zou, Sathish Babu Vasamsetti, Partha Dutta, Steven A. Leers, Wu Di, and Gang Li (2023) SATB2, coordinated with CUX1, regulates IL-1β-induced senescence-like phenotype in endothelial cells by fine-tuning the atherosclerosis-associated p16INK4a expression. Aging Cell, 00, e13765. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.13765
  2. Ting Wu and Gang Li (2022) An Improved EMSA-based Method to Prioritize Candidate cis-REs for Further Functional Validation. Bio-protocol 12(8): e4397. DOI: 10.21769/Bioprotoc.4397.
  3. Xiaoyu Zhang, Meijaun Zou, Yuwei Wu, Danli Jiang, Ting Wu, Yihan Zhao, Di Wu, Jing Cui and Gang Li (2022) Regulation of the Late Onset Alzheimer’s Disease Associated HLA-DQA1/DRB1 Expression. American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease & Other Dementias. January 2022. doi:10.1177/15333175221085066
  4. Ting Wu, Danli Jiang, Meijuan Zou, Wei Sun, Di Wu, Jing Cui, Ian Huntress, Xinxia Peng, and Gang Li (2022) Coupling high-throughput mapping with proteomics analysis delineates cis-regulatory elements at high resolution. Nucleic Acids Research Volume 50, Issue 1, 11 January 2022, Page e5, https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkab890
  5. Danli Jiang, Wei Sun, Ting Wu, Meijuan Zou, Sathish Babu Vasamsetti, Xiaoyu Zhang, Yihan Zhao, Julie A. Phillippi, Sina Tavakoli, Partha Dutta, Jonathan Florentin, Stephen Y. Chan, Di Wu, Jing Cui, Ian Huntress, Xinxia Peng, Toren Finkel, and Gang Li (2022) Post-GWAS functional analysis of the CDKN2A/B locus identifies CUX1 as a regulator of p16INK4a expression and cellular senescence. Nature Aging. 2022;2(2):140-54. doi: 10.1038/s43587-022-00177-0.
  6. Meijuan Zou, Danli Jiang, Ting Wu, Xiaoyu Zhang, Yihan Zhao, Di Wu, Wei Sun, Jing Cui, Larry Moreland, and Gang Li (2021) Post-GWAS functional studies reveal an RA-associated CD40-induced NF-kB signal transduction and transcriptional regulation network targeted by class II HDAC inhibitors. Hum Mol Genet.  2021 May 28;30(9):823-835. doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddab032. PubMed PMID: 33517445; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8161515.
  7. Meijuan Zou, Xiaoyu Zhang, Danli Jiang, Yihan Zhao, Ting Wu, Qia Gong, Hau Su, Di Wu, Larry Moreland, and Gang Li (2020) Transcriptional Regulation of CD40 Expression by 4 Ribosomal Proteins via a Functional SNP on a Disease-Associated CD40 Locus. Genes (Basel). 2020 Dec 21;11(12). doi: 10.3390/genes11121526. PubMed PMID: 33371207; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7767238.
  8. Yihan Zhao, Di Wu, Danli Jiang, Xiaoyu Zhang, Ting Wu, Jing Cui, Min Qian, Jean Zhao, Steffi Oesterreich, Wei Sun, Toren Finkel, and Gang Li (2020) A sequential methodology for the rapid identification and characterization of breast cancer-associated functional SNPs. Nat. Commun. 11, 3340 (2020) https:doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17159-8
  9. Gang Li (co-corresponding author), Yu Yang, Di Wu, Jing Cui, Hung N. Nguyen, Pierre Cunin, Anaïs Levescot, Ming Bai, Yukinori Okada, Michael B. Brenner, Soumya Raychaudhuri, Eric A. Hendrickson, Richard Maas, and Peter A. Nigrovic (2018) High throughput identification of Disease-associated non-coding functional SNPs via type IIS enzyme restriction. Nature Genet. 2018 Jul. 16; PubMed PMID: 30013183.
  10. Gang Li (co-corresponding author), Pierre Cunin, Yu Yang, Di Wu, Dorothee Diogo, Yukinori Okada, Robert Plenge and Peter Nigrovic (2016) The rheumatoid arthritics risk variant CCR6DNP regulates CCR6 via PARP-1. PLoS Genetics. Published September 14, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal. Pgen. 1006292.