Rate My Professor Wei Li

Wei Li is a Professor and Principal Investigator at the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. in condensed matter physics from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2006, following earlier studies at the same institution. His career includes postdoctoral research at the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and progressive research appointments at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, advancing from Assistant Research Professor in 2007 to Associate Research Professor in 2009 before joining the Institute of Biophysics as Professor and Principal Investigator in 2023.

Li’s research focuses on the dynamics and regulation of chromatin at the single-molecule level, with emphasis on nucleosome assembly, histone modifications, and chromatin fiber structures. He has received awards including the Ministry of Education Natural Science Second Prize in 2023 for work on the molecular basis of chromatin structure and genome stability maintenance, and the Beijing Municipal Government Scientific and Technological Progress Second Prize in 2018 for studies on 30nm chromatin fibers. Key publications include “FACT mediates the depletion of macroH2A1.2 to expedite gene transcription” in Molecular Cell (2024), “H2B ubiquitination recruits FACT to maintain a stable altered nucleosome state for transcriptional activation” in Nature Communications (2023), and “FACT Remodels the Tetranucleosomal Unit of Chromatin Fibers for Gene Transcription” in Molecular Cell (2016). He serves on committees of the Biophysical Society of China and has contributed invited reviews to journals such as JACS Au and Annual Review of Biophysics.