Minyong Li

Dr. Li focuses on establishing new tools for biological visualization and photoswitch-guided approaches in drug discovery, including: 1) developing an in vivo photoswitchable strategy with the spatiotemporal resolution of light in cells and animals, and discovering two bioactive photopharmacological tools, piCRAC and phoPS, for controlling CRAC channel and Tim-3 protein in vivo, respectively; 2) creating a bioluminescent imaging agent for brain cancer, cybLuc, that has been licensed to Biosynth (Switzerland), and developing a drug candidate, YZ129, for treat glioblastoma that has been licensed to a small business in China; and 3) finding a visualization-based methodology, and approaching several drug candidates for different drug targets.