March, 2024 Mengdi Yang successfully defended her thesis and became the 2nd PhD student who graduated from the lab.
October, 2023 The official announcement for the 2023 NIH’s New Innovator Award was released https://commonfund.nih.gov/newinnovator/AwardRecipients. We are looking forward to developing a potentially disruptive technology to edit the microbiome in situ.
July, 2023 The Li lab setup was completed.
May, 2023 The new lab space is ready to welcome new personnel and equipment.
January, 2023 The official notification of NSF CAREER came, and many thanks to former and current mentors, students and collaborators.
July, 2022 The Li lab signs a sponsor research agreement with ECO Animal Health (United Kingdom, https://ecoanimalhealth.com) to pursue genetically modified probiotics in poultry.
April, 2022 The Li lab participated in “Building Bridges”, a semi-annual event to provide high school students with the opportunity to explore Northeastern University’s College of Engineering. We talked about how our lab has been engineering bacteria to address challenges in essential medicines.
February, 2022 Our long-term collaborator Dr. Xuesong He (PI) from the Forsyth Institute received an R01 award from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, and the Li lab (co-I) is excited to be one of the key collaborators over the next five years to explore the oral microbiome-host interactions mediated by tRNA fragments. https://reporter.nih.gov/search/uvtBal8gnUKRugVjBNdoOw/project-details/10446416
December, 2021 The Li lab received an R03 award from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. We will collaborate with Dr. Xuesong He from the Forsyth Institute in Cambridge to develop innovative ways to target opportunistic oral pathogens using chemically modified small RNAs. https://reporter.nih.gov/search/nHqoLl4yoEG7JLglaocUXA/project-details/10353249
December, 2021 Congratulations to our undergrad researcher Shana Broitman (COE’23) on being awarded an Honors Early Research Award
October, 2021 PhD students Mengdi Yang and Shaobo Yang presented their work at the 2021 Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Meeting in Orlando, Florida.
October, 2021 Congratulations to our undergrad researcher Shana Broitman (COE’23) on being selected as one of the Fall 2021 PEAK Experiences Awardees. She is going to pursue “Overcoming STING Silencing in Cancer Cells through Ribonucleoprotein Strategy.” https://bioe.northeastern.edu/news/fall-2021-peak-experiences-awardees/
August, 2021 The Li lab receives the Trailblazer Award from NIBIB to develop programmable probiotics against Leigh syndrome. https://reporter.nih.gov/search/JR21r2mf3E6iD7k2bXN96w/project-details/10303309
April, 2021 The Li lab signs a 3-year sponsor research agreement from Quintarabio to pursue genome editing.
On March 17th, 2021, members from the Li lab spent a few hours driving to the Aquaculture Research Institute at the University of Maine to perform a pilot vaccination study in Atlantic Salmon. Special thanks to Dr. Deborah Bouchard, Sarah Turner, and their team members for hosting our visit.
February, 2021 The Li lab receives the FY20 Idea Award from PRCRP to target oncogenic gut metabolite to prevent colorectal cancer. https://cdmrp.army.mil/prcrp/awards/20iaawards
October, 2020 The Li lab receives the FY20 Discovery Award from PRMRP to address mitochondrial diseases using engineered gut commensal bacteria. https://cdmrp.army.mil/prmrp/awards/20daawards
September, 2020 Our research project entitled A Novel Adjuvant for Aquaculture Vaccines Using Engineered Bacteria Targeting the STING Pathway has been selected for the inaugural grant from the Roux Institute, a joint program between Northeastern University and the University of Maine.
June, 2020 The Li lab receives industry funding from Hollings Biotech to develop a rapid platform for manufacturing nanobodies towards personalized diagnosis.
October 17, 2019 The Li lab (co-PI) receives an international grant with the title of “Engineer synthetic exosomes for RNA interference in ovarian cancer” from the Research and Innovation Agency at the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia. We will collaborate with Dr. Amal Ali Al-Dossary (PI) from Saudi to find a cure for women who suffer from ovarian cancer.
October 3rd 2019, Mengdi, Ge and Keqing drove to visit the Setlow lab at the UConn Health Center and learned the art of spore purification from his lab members. From left to right: Mengdi Yang, Ge Zhu, Peter Setlow, George Korza and Keqing Nian.
August 20, 2019 Professors Bajpayee and Li received an NIH Trailblazer R21 grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Professor Li, as the Co-PI on the collaborative grant, will apply tools developed in his lab including bacterial synthetic biology and drug delivery to address cartilage damage and repair.
August 18, 2019 The Li lab receives the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Northeastern University Joint Program in Cancer Drug Development Award. We will collaborate with Dr. David Barbie’s lab from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to develop a new approach to address resistance against immune checkpoint blockade in non-small cell lung cancer.
June 19, 2019 Ge and Mengdi presented their work on engineering B. subtilis spores to make future medicines with long shelf lives at room temperature at the 2nd Annual Bioengineering Research Symposium
June 6-7 2019 Three lab members attended the 25th annual Boston Bacterial Meeting held at the Harvard Science Center, and met some future collaborators in engineering the human microbiome for oral and gut health.
April 2019 Our lab received the Mentored Award from FY20 TIER 1 Grant, titled “Engineering Novel Analgesics Inspired from the Gut Microbiome” Jiahe Li (Bioengineering), Kim Lewis (Biology)
December 2018 The Li Lab has received the 2018 Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program – Discovery Award from the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, to explore oral vaccines against Zika virus.