Maoyin Li

Maoyin is originally from Henan province, China where he graduated from Henan Normal University with a B.S. in Biology. After that, he obtained a M.S. in Plant Physiology from Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Science. There he worked on the production and regulation of plant secondary metabolites in the lab of Dexiu Zhao. He moved to Kansas State University and earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry co-advised by Drs. Xuemin Wang and Ruth Welti. There, he was involved in the projects of establishing lipidomics platforms and characterizing functions of plant phospholipases in response to phosphate starvation. As a postdoctoral trainee at the Washington University Medical School directed by Drs. Richard Gross and Xianlin Han, he characterized the enzymatic functions of mammal phospholipases using high resolution mass spectrometry.

He currently is a scientist at Newomics, working in the area of precision medicine. Before that, Maoyin was a research assistant professor at University of Missouri-St. Louis and Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. His research there was focused on lipid analysis using mass spectrometry, biochemical analysis of lipid-related enzymes, molecular and genetic engineering of lipid metabolism pathways to enhance seed oil accumulation, and plant responses to environmental stresses. The goal was understanding functions of genes in lipid metabolism to enhance agriculture productivity.