Li Ding
Affiliation:Washington University, USA
Technical Title:Professor
Li Ding, PhD, is the David English Smith Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Washington University. Dr. Ding's research focuses on integrating cancer proteogenomics (including single cell and spatial omics), patient-derived cancer models, functional genomics, and drug development to advance cancer biology and precision medicine. This work spans many cancer types, including acute myeloid leukemia, breast cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, glioblastoma, and multiple myeloma, with key findings including the identification and characterization of pathogenic germline variants and somatic cancer drivers, and discovery of age-related clonal hematopoiesis. Her research team has also developed widely-used computational tools, including VarScan, SciClone, BreakDancer, MSIsensor, Pindel-C, HotSpot3D, and MuSiC and she plays significant roles and co-chairs various groups within The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC), the Patient-Derived Xenografts Development and Trial Centers Research Network (PDXNet), Patient Engagement and Cancer Genome Sequencing (PE-CGS), Cellular Senescence Network (SenNet), and Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN). She also serves on the Steering Committees of CPTAC, TCGA, PDXnet, PE-CGS, SenNet, and co-chairs the HTAN Steering Committee. Dr. Ding has been recognized several times among Thomson-Reuters’ surveys of influential researchers, including listing among “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds”, and was a member of a group honored with the American Association of Cancer Research Team Science Award for contributions to TCGA. Her work continues to be inspired by the ultimate goal of making personalized medicine a reality for cancer patients.