Mei Li

Fellowship 2013

ARCHIVE

Dr. Mei Li obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry in Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1998. She moved to Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (IGBMC) in Strasbourg to perform her postdoctoral research, focusing on the in vivo functional study of nuclear receptors using spatial-temporally controlled somatic mutagenesis in mouse. She was recruited as researcher (CR) at CNRS in 2002, and worked on skin immunity and pathogenesis of atopic dermatitis (AD, the most common inflammatory skin disease). Using advanced mouse genetic tools and experimental mouse models, her work has established a central role of epidermal keratinocyte-derived cytokine TSLP (thymic stromal lymphopoietin) in triggering AD pathogenesis, as well as in mediating the progression from AD to asthma (clinically known as “atopic march”). In 2010, Dr. Mei Li obtained her “Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches” at the Université de Strasbourg. Since 2011, she is CNRS Research Director at IGBMC. The research of her group is towards an understanding of pathogenesis of atopic diseases (e.g. AD and asthma), by utilizing integrated mouse genetic tools, cellular and molecular biology approaches and computational mathematical modeling. Dr. Mei Li has been recently awarded Prix/Subvention de Fondation Simone et Cino del Duca de l’institut de France (2012) and Prix/Subvention de Recherche de la Societe Francaise d’Allergologie (2012).

In vivo visualizing the dynamics of cytokine-targeting cells

Fellows Fribourg-Strasbourg: Mei Li and Jianying Yang
Post-docs: John Lindner and Simone Reipschläger

The current FRIAS-USIAS project joins forces of the group of Dr. Mei LI (mouse modeling systems for cytokine functional study) at IGBMC, and the group of Dr. Jianying YANG (synthetic biology toolkit and advanced imaging technologies for membrane protein signaling study) at MPI-IE, in order to conduct a highly original research for better understanding the in vivo signaling of cytokine TSLP (thymic stromal lymphopoietin), a key player involved in multiple disease states including atopic diseases (e.g. atopic dermatitis and asthma). The research aims at developing a novel research concept of visualizing the dynamics of cytokine-targeting cells in tissue microenvironment, by employing innovative analysis strategies and methodological frameworks that combine the advanced microscopy and imaging technologies, synthetic biology toolkit, aptamer-based sensors, and mouse modeling and genetic tools. The study is expected to break a new interdisciplinary research ground in cytokine biology, cell signaling and in vivo imaging, and to provide powerful tools for research and medical application.