Zhongwei Li, PhD

Trained as a stem cell biologist, Dr. Zhongwei Li has been using mouse models, human pluripotent stem cells, kidney progenitor cells, and kidney organoids as model systems to study stem cell biology, organ regeneration, and disease modeling for more than 17 years. As a graduate student in Dr. Ye-Guang Chen’s lab at Tsinghua University (2007-2012), he studied the molecular mechanisms of how different signaling pathways coordinate to determine pluripotent stem cell fates. Dr. Li identified a novel signaling cascade, BMP/Smad/DUSP9/ERK, essential in the crosstalk and intracellular integration of extrinsic signals (LIF and BMP) to regulate pluripotent stem cell fates (Li et al., Cell Stem Cell, 2012). As a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte’s lab at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (2012-2017), he focused on kidney regeneration and developed a three-dimensional culture system which enabled, for the first time, the long-term expansion of primary nephron progenitor cells, which can further generate nephrons, the functional units of the kidney, in a nephron organoid model in vitro and in a chimeric mouse model in vivo (Li et al., Cell Stem Cell, 2016). As an assistant professor at USC (2017-present), his long-term research goal is to engineer a synthetic kidney from stem cells as an alternative off-the-shelf source for kidney transplantation (funded by NIH Director’s New Innovator Award). Dr. Li’s short-term research goal is to develop next-generation mature and functional kidney organoid models for kidney disease modeling and drug discovery (Zeng et al., Nature Communications, 2021; Huang et al., Cell Stem Cell, 2024). His research combines state-of-the-art stem cell technologies, genome editing tools, and bioengineering approaches to achieve these goals. Dr. Li’s lab integrates research strategies from a broad range of disciplines including molecular biology, cell biology, developmental biology, genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, and bioengineering.

• NIH: NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, 2022
• University of Southern California: “Heros Among Us” Medal, 2022
• School of Life Sciences of Tsinghua University: Representative Alumni Award, 2021
• Keck School of Medicine of USC: Dean’s Pilot Award, 2019
• Wright Foundation: Wright Foundation Pilot Award, 2018
• Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC): Top 100 Influential Research Articles in China (2012), 2013
• Johnson & Johnson: “Johnson & Johnson Asia Outstanding Thesis Award in Bio-tech”, 1st Prize, 2012
• Ray Wu Memorial Fund: Ray Wu Prize, 2012
• City of Beijing: Outstanding Ph.D. Graduate Award, 2012
• Tsinghua University: Outstanding Ph.D. Graduate Award, 2012
• Tsinghua University: Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis Award, 2012
• Sichuan University: Outstanding Undergraduate Award, 2007
• Sichuan University: Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Award, 2007

• Approaches to kidney replacement therapies-opportunities and challenges Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022; 10:953408. . View in PubMed
• Building a kidney tree: Functional collecting duct from human pluripotent stem cells Dev Cell. 2022 10 10; 57(19):2251-2253. . View in PubMed
• Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein forms nuclear condensates and regulates alternative splicing Nat Commun. 2022 06 25; 13(1):3646. . View in PubMed
• Generation of patterned kidney organoids that recapitulate the adult kidney collecting duct system from expandable ureteric bud progenitors Nat Commun. 2021 06 15; 12(1):3641. . View in PubMed
• Epigenetic regulation of kidney progenitor cells Stem Cells Transl Med. 2020 Jun; 9(6):655-660. . View in PubMed
• A Modular Differentiation System Maps Multiple Human Kidney Lineages from Pluripotent Stem Cells Cell Rep. 2020 04 07; 31(1):107476. . View in PubMed
• Kidney-in-a-lymph node: A novel organogenesis assay to model human renal development and test nephron progenitor cell fates J Tissue Eng Regen Med. 2019 09; 13(9):1724-1731. . View in PubMed
• Gene Editing in 3D Cultured Nephron Progenitor Cell Lines Methods Mol Biol. 2019; 1926:151-159. . View in PubMed
• Derivation of Pluripotent Stem Cells with In Vivo Embryonic and Extraembryonic PotencyCell. 2017 04 06; 169(2):243-257. e25. . View in PubMed
• Activin/Smad2-induced Histone H3 Lys-27 Trimethylation (H3K27me3) Reduction Is Crucial to Initiate Mesendoderm Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells J Biol Chem. 2017 01 27; 292(4):1339-1350. . View in PubMed
• 3D Culture Supports Long-Term Expansion of Mouse and Human Nephrogenic Progenitors Cell Stem Cell. 2016 10 06; 19(4):516-529. . View in PubMed
• Activin Regulates Self-renewal and Differentiation of Trophoblast Stem Cells by Down-regulating the X Chromosome Gene Bcor J Biol Chem. 2015 Sep 04; 290(36):22019-29. . View in PubMed
• An alternative pluripotent state confers interspecies chimaeric competency Nature. 2015 May 21; 521(7552):316-21. . View in PubMed
• BMP induces cochlin expression to facilitate self-renewal and suppress neural differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells J Biol Chem. 2013 Mar 22; 288(12):8053-8060. . View in PubMed
• Functions of BMP signaling in embryonic stem cell fate determination Exp Cell Res. 2013 Jan 15; 319(2):113-9. . View in PubMed
• TGF-ß in Human Disease (Chapter 2) 2013. . View in PubMed
• Fine-tune of intrinsic ERK activity by extrinsic BMP signaling in mouse embryonic stem cells Protein Cell. 2012 Jun; 3(6):401-4. . View in PubMed
• Where PI3K/Akt meets Smads: the crosstalk determines human embryonic stem cell fate Cell Stem Cell. 2012 Mar 02; 10(3):231-2. . View in PubMed
• BMP4 Signaling Acts via dual-specificity phosphatase 9 to control ERK activity in mouse embryonic stem cells Cell Stem Cell. 2012 Feb 03; 10(2):171-82. . View in PubMed
• Smad2 mediates Activin/Nodal signaling in mesendoderm differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells Cell Res. 2010 Dec; 20(12):1306-18. . View in PubMed
• Genome-wide mapping of SMAD target genes reveals the role of BMP signaling in embryonic stem cell fate determination Genome Res. 2010 Jan; 20(1):36-44. . View in PubMed

• McMahon, Andrew
• Lindstrom, Nils
• McDonough, Alicia
• Chuong, Cheng-Ming
• Warburton, David
• Murry, Charles