Li Lab

We apply functional genomic, epigenomic, and single-cell tools to dissect the genetics of complex diseases such as obesity and diabetes.

Research

Metabolic Disease Genetics

Genetic and regulatory mechanisms that shape obesity, diabetes, and related cardiometabolic traits.

Adipose and Islet Genomics

Functional genomic studies of metabolically relevant tissues and cell types in human disease contexts.

Single-Cell and Multi-Omic Analysis

Single-cell, spatial, epigenomic, and transcriptomic approaches for resolving disease-associated cell states.

Computational Functional Genomics

Data-driven prioritization of genes, variants, and pathways that connect regulatory variation to metabolic phenotypes.

Publications

All publications

Apr 2026

Proinsulin regulators identified with CRISPR screen and in vivo mouse QTL mapping

Sisi Lai, Mark P. Keller, Jinglin Zhang, Zhou Fang, Ying Xie, Chen Weng, Saixian Zhang, Shanshan Zhang, ..., Peidong Gao, Luxin Ke, Yuntong Wang, Yan Li, et al.

Nature Communications

Oct 2025

A comprehensive benchmark of single-cell Hi-C embedding tools

Dylan Plummer, Xiuyuan Lang, Shanshan Zhang, Yan Li, Jing Li, Fulai Jin

Nature Communications · DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-64186-4 · PMID: 41087414

Sep 2023

Single cell multiomic analysis reveals diabetes-associated β-cell heterogeneity driven by HNF1A.

Chen Weng, Anniya Gu, Shanshan Zhang, Leina Lu, Luxin Ke, Peidong Gao, Xiaoxiao Liu, Yuntong Wang, ..., Jiajia Xi, Sisi Lai, Konstantin Leskov, Yan Li, et al.

Nature Communications · DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41228-3 · PMID: 37669939

Resources

All resources

Beta Cell Hub

A Public Resource for Pancreatic Beta Cell

Open resource

RePACT

Regressing Principle components for the Assembly of Continuous Trajectory

Open resource

Contact

Li Lab is actively recruiting motivated postdocs and graduate students.

Contact