Biography

Dr. Jun Li is a Professor with tenure in Neurology. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Dublin in Ireland. He then received his post-doctoral training at the University of Connecticut Health Center. In 2009, he secured an Assistant Professor position at the University of Connecticut Health Center with extramural support from the American Heart Association in the form of a national Scientist Development Grant award. He then transitioned to a tenure-track Assistant Professor position after obtaining an R01 and an R21 grant in 2012. Dr. Li joined the Neurology department at UTHealth in 2015 as the Director of Basic Stroke Research.  Dr. Li has served on the grant peer review committee for the American Heart Association and routinely served on committees of the National Institutes of Health grant review study sections. One of Dr. Li’s main areas of interest is encouraging student research. He has been mentoring medical, pre-med, and graduate students for many years in research as a faculty member in the UConn Medical School and here at UTHealth. As an educator, Dr. Li is additionally enthusiastic about classroom teaching and has been teaching courses including neuroanatomy to medical students at UConn and UTHealth. Dr. Li currently serves as the course director of the Translational Neuroscience course at UTHealth and the MD Anderson UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS).

Education

Doctorate
Neuropharmacology, University of Dublin - Trinity College, College Green, Dublin
Fellowship
Postdoctoral, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, CT

Areas of Interest

Research Interests

Dr. Li’s lab research focuses on stroke as well as dementia. His work emphasizes the role of various cellular pathways in stroke recovery, including the interaction between neurons and astrocytes in stroke. Dr. Li has long-standing interests in the profound impact of biological variable including sex 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.

Dr. Li’s research, funded by the National Institute on Aging, also investigates the impact of disordered breathing on cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). His lab utilizes multiple transgenic animal models of AD and CAA, as well as a chronic hypoperfusion model for vascular dementia. Employing cutting-edge techniques, Dr. Li’s team studies neurovascular coupling and glymphatic clearance of amyloid beta in dementia models. This comprehensive approach allows for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms in dementia, potentially leading to new therapeutic strategies for these devastating neurological conditions.