• PhD, Biomedical and Veterinary Medical Sciences, Louisiana State University,2014
• MS, Clinical Veterinary Medicine, Shanxi Agricultural University, 2006
• BS, Veterinary Medicine, Shandong Agricultural University, 2003

• Molecular toxicology
• DNA damage and repair

• 2019 NIH/NIEHS K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award
• 2018 UNC Postdoctoral Award for Research Excellence
• 2018 EMGS New Investigator Travel Award
• 2014 Phi Zeta Research Emphasis Day Award

• American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB)
• American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
• Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society (EMGS)

Dr. Li’s lab aims at elucidating the role of DNA damage and repair in mutagenesis and carcinogenesis caused by environmental carcinogens.

Li, W.*, Sancar, A.* (2020) Methodologies for detecting environmentally induced DNA damage and repair. Environ Mol Mutagen, doi: 10.1002/em.22365.

Li, W.#, Liu, W.#, Kakoki, A., Wang, R., Adebali, O., Jiang, Y. and Sancar, A. (2019) Nucleotide excision repair capacity increases during differentiation of human embryonic carcinoma cells into neurons and muscle cells. J Biol Chem, 294, 5914-5922.

Hu, J.#, Li, W.# *, Adebali, O., Yang, Y., Oztas, O., Selby, C.P. and Sancar, A.* (2019) Genome-wide mapping of nucleotide excision repair with XR-seq. Nature protocols, 14, 248-282.

Li, W., Adebali, O., Yang, Y., Selby, C.P. and Sancar, A.* (2018) Single-nucleotide resolution dynamic repair maps of UV damage in Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 115, E3408-E3415.

Li, W., Hu, J., Adebali, O., Adar, S., Yang, Y., Chiou, Y.Y. and Sancar, A.* (2017) Human genome-wide repair map of DNA damage caused by the cigarette smoke carcinogen benzo[a]pyrene. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 114, 6752-6757.

Li, W., Selvam, K., Rahman, S.A. and Li, S.* (2016) Sen1, the yeast homolog of human senataxin, plays a more direct role than Rad26 in transcription coupled DNA repair. Nucleic Acids Res, 44, 6794-6802.

Li, W., Selvam, K., Ko, T. and Li, S.* (2014) Transcription bypass of DNA lesions enhances cell survival but attenuates transcription coupled DNA repair. Nucleic Acids Res, 42, 13242-13253.

Li, W., Giles, C. and Li, S.* (2014) Insights into how Spt5 functions in transcription elongation and repressing transcription coupled DNA repair. Nucleic Acids Res, 42, 7069-7083.