Li Lab
Jun Li, PhD – Professor
Education & Training
PhD Neuropharmacology, Trinity College Dublin – Dublin, Ireland
Postdoctoral Fellowship University of Connecticut Health Center – Farmington, CT
Areas of Interest
Research interests: cerebral ischemia
Research & Experience
Dr. Li’s lab aims to identify novel therapeutic approaches to reduce mortality and disability resulting from stroke. Dr. Li’s research currently is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate the neuroprotective roles of calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase (CaMK) cascade in cerebral ischemia. The lab has been investigating axonal plasticity, neuronal and vascular regeneration, as well as brain functional recovery after cerebral ischemia. Dr. Li also has long-standing interests in the profound impact of biological variable including gender and aging on stroke outcome. His team has extensive experience of in vivo and in vitro stroke models, pharmacology, brain blood flow measurements, brain immune regulation, viral vector transduction, models for neurite plasticity studies and long-term brain functional recovery assessments.
Ahmad El Hamamy, MD – Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Education & Training
MD Suez Canal University, School of Medicine – Egypt (2020)
Areas of Interest
Research interests: Cerebral Ischemia, Neuroinflammation, Respiratory responses post-stroke and potential differences in stroke-induced respiratory dysfunction in aged models, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy.
Clinical interests: Vascular Neurology and Neurocritical Care
Research & Experience
I joined Dr. Li’s lab after graduating medical school in Egypt and moving to the states, to enrich my experience and further development in Neurosciences. I aim to match into a Neurology Residency program and leave this lab as a budding physician-scientist. Our main focus is to determine how stroke affects the control of breathing in normal aging mice, AD, and in CAA, and whether treatments designed to improve the respiratory phenotype reduce disease progression and improve cognition.
Hobbies & Interests
Soccer, table tennis, Arabic literature, and fishing
Zahid Iqbal, DVM, PhD – Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Education and Training
DVM University of Agriculture – Faisalabad, Pakistan (2010)
PhD Pharmacology, Huazhong Agricultural University – Wuhan, China (2016)
Areas of Interest
Research interests: Alzheimer’s Disease, cerebral angiopathy, and cerebral ischemia
Clinical interests: Alzheimer’s Disease and stroke treatment
Research & Experience
During my previous postdoctoral work (2018-2022) in the Department of Pharmacology at the Shenzhen University Health Science Center in China, I focused on the Wnt signaling pathway and its regulation during tumor formation. My current research plan includes applying my expertise of signaling pathways toward Alzheimer’s disease and stroke treatment.
Hobbies & Interests
Hiking, soccer, history, and spending time with my kids.
Yuxing Zhang, PhD – Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Education & Training
MS Hunan University of Chinese Medicine – China (2020)
PhD Hunan University of Chinese Medicine – China (2023)
Areas of Interest
Research interests: Vascular pathology development in stroke, CAA, Alzheimer’s Disease, and herbal medicine for cerebrovascular disease
Research & Experience
My previous research focused on the impact of circadian rhythms and Bmal1 on angiogenesis in the brain following ischemic stroke, as well as the regulatory mechanisms underlying herbal treatments. The current study aims to investigate the impact of stroke on respiratory function in aged mice, with a focus on CAA and AD.
Hobbies & Interests
Traveling, table tennis, cooking, and movies
Research Assistants
Arya Ranjan
Education and Training
BS Neuroscience, The University of Texas at Dallas – Richardson, TX (2022)
EMT The University of Texas at Dallas (2022)