Prof. Lele Li received his Ph.D. in College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering from the Peking University in 2010 under the supervision of Prof. Chun-Hua Yan. He was a postdoctoral associate in the laboratory of Prof. Yi Lu at University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign (UIUC) during 2010-2012, and then worked with Prof. Robert Langer and Prof. Daniel Kohane as a postdoctoral associate at MIT and Harvard Medical School during 2012-2016. He joined the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology as Professor in July 2016. He is the recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (2021), Beijing Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (2020), National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars (2018), and the Thousand Talents Program Award for Young Researchers (2015).
Read moreOur research aims to develop cutting-edge methodologies and technologies for bio-detection and imaging in vitro and in vivo with high precision both temporally and spatially. One major research strategy is to employ upconversion nanoparticles as transducers to finely tune the bioimaging and biosensing functions with NIR light. By controlling the bioimaging at high spatiotemporal resolution, light-activatable systems will provide a noninvasive way to improve the capability of imaging signal identification and enhance specific targeting with a concomitant decrease of off-target effects. We also seek to develop molecular machines and devices with smart performance, which allow to be delivered to any site of interest in complex biological systems without detecting analytes encountered in transit and, therefore, are amenable to personalizing the sensing modality with high accuracy and spatiotemporal resolution. Overall, our research program covers a broad scope of multidisciplinary areas including analytical chemistry, materials science, nanotechnology, and biomedical engineering.