Awards/Affiliations

· Arthur Dunham Holmes 1906 Memorial Graduate Fellowship       1999 

· HuaXin Award  1992,  USTC Scholarship, 

·  American Chemical Society      1997-present

Research Experience

Postdoctoral Research  2000-present

Department of Chemistry, State University of New York at Stony Brook

Research Advisor: Dr. Iwao Ojima

· Performed multistep syntheses toward the preparation of the third generation taxoids for structure-activity relationship studies of tubulin binding in search for better antitumor reagents.  Carried out syntheses of a novel epothilone B analog as a potential photoaffinity label of microtubules in order to determine the binding site of epothilone B in b-tubulin. 

Doctoral Studies   1995-2000

Department of Chemistry, Dartmouth College

Research Advisor: Dr. Thomas A. Spencer

· Independently carried out multistep syntheses of oxysterols and their derivatives for investigations of the regulatory effect oxysterols may have on cholesterol biosynthesis and catabolism. Contributed to synthesis of natural and unnatural sterols to evaluate as regulators of the nuclear receptor LXRa. Skilled in milligram and mutligram scale multi-step synthesis and in techniques of product purification and characterization including standard 1D and 2D NMR, HPLC and GC-MS.

 Undergraduate Thesis Research     1994-1995

Department of Chemistry, USTC

Research Advisor: Dr. Minggang Lu

· Established a novel chemiluminescence system that could be used for detection of luminol.

Lecturer    2000-present

State University of New York at Stony Brook

· In charge of one section of general Organic Chemistry Laboratories, supervised graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants.

  Teaching Assistant    1995-1998

Dartmouth College

· General Chemistry Laboratory, General and Advanced Organic Chemistry Laboratories and Organic Chemistry Recitation. Duties included presentation of lab lecture to about 40 undergraduates, assisting students during office hours, evaluation and informal supervision of undergraduate teaching assistants.

Publications

· "Further Studies on Synthesis of 24(S), 25-Epoxycholesterol. A New Efficient  Preparation of Desmosterol" Spencer, T. A.^a; Li, D.^a; Russel, J. S.^a; Tomkinson, C. O. N.^b; Willson, T. M.^b  Department of Chemistry, Dartmouth College^a, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Glaxo Wellcome^b. J. Org. Chem. 2000,  65, 1919-1923. and presented at the ACS national meeting, San Francisco, CA, March 26-30, 2000.

· "Synthesis of 7a-Hydroxy Derivatives of Regulatory Oxysterols" Li, D.; Spencer, T. A. Steroids 2000, 65, 529-535.

· " Key Regulatory Oxysterols in Liver: Analysis as D4-3-Ketone Derivatives by High Performance Liquid Chromatography and response to Physiological Perturbations"  Zhang, Z.; Li, D.; Blanchard, D. E.; Lear, S. R.; Erickson, S. K.; Spencer, T. A. submitted to J. Lipid Res. October 2000.

· “Pharmacophore Analysis of the Nuclear Receptor LXRa” Spencer, T. A.^a; Li, D.^a; Russel, J. S.^a; Bledsoe, R. K. ^b; Consler, T. G. ^b; Moore, L. B. ^b; Galardi, C. M. ^b; McKee, D. D. ^b; Moore, J. T. ^b; Watson, M. A. ^b; Parks, D. J. ^b; Lambert, M. H. ^b; Willson, T. M.^b  Department of Chemistry, Dartmouth College^a, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Glaxo Wellcome^b. manuscript in preparation.

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