Academic Profiles
Secondary Faculty

Jun Li

Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition

Nutrition

junli@hsph.harvard.edu

Links

Overview

As an epidemiologist with medical training, Dr. Li is experienced and committed to the research of diabetes and cardiovascular disease prevention, with particular interests and expertise in integrating state-of-the-art multi-omics technologies and advanced analytics under the framework of systems epidemiology, aiming to identify novel risk factors, understand disease etiology and mechanisms through which risk factors impact health, and to inform the development of personalized preventive and therapeutic strategies. In the past few years, Dr. Li has been leading multiple projects in large population cohorts and interventional trials including the UK Biobank, Nurses’ Health Studies, Health Professionals Follow-up Study, the PREDIMED study, and the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos, among others. Dr. Li was awarded the Jeremiah and Rose Stamler Research Award and the Mark Bieber Award by the American Heart Association. She is actively involved in teaching activities at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her current research projects include:

1. integrating multi-omics data (transcriptomics, metabolomics, and metagenomics) to examine mechanisms through which diet and lifestyles affect risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cognitive decline;
2. employing large-scale genetic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data to examine biological risk factors and pathways relevant to the development cardiovascular disease and diabetes;
3. using polygenic risk prediction for complex disease to identify high-risk populations and examine effective diet/lifestyle intervention strategies for disease prevention among high genetic risk groups.

Postdoc fellow, 01/2020, Cardiometabolic Disease Epidemiology, Integrated Omics
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA

Research Scientist, 03/2022, Cardiometabolic Disease Epidemiology, Integrated Omics
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA

MD, 06/2011, Preventive Medicine
Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China

PhD, 06/2016, Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Environmental Health
School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China

The Bernard Lown Scholarship in Cardiovascular Health Program
Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

Best Young Investigators
The Lancet-CAMS Health Summit 2015

The Postdoc Association Travel Award
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

The Jeremiah and Rose Stamler Research Award winner
American Heart Association

The Barry R. and Irene Tilenius Bloom Fellowship Award
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Scott Grundy Fellowship Award for Excellence in Metabolism Research
American Heart Association

The “Reviewers’ Choice” Award
American Society of Human Genetics Annual Meeting

The Mark Bieber Award
American Heart Association

Bibliography

Arginine catabolism metabolites and atrial fibrillation or heart failure risk: 2 case-control studies within the Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea (PREDIMED) trial.

Goni L, Razquin C, Toledo E, Guasch-Ferré M, Clish CB, Babio N, Wittenbecher C, Atzeni A, Li J, Liang L, Dennis C, Alonso-Gómez Á, Fitó M, Corella D, Gómez-Gracia E, Estruch R, Fiol M, Lapetra J, Serra-Majem L, Ros E, Arós F, Salas-Salvadó J, Hu FB, Martínez-González MA, Ruiz-Canela M.

Am J Clin Nutr. 2022 09 02. 116(3):653-662. PMID: 35575609

Differences in Metabolomic Profiles Between Black and White Women and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease: an Observational Study of Women From Four US Cohorts.

Hu J, Yao J, Deng S, Balasubramanian R, Jiménez MC, Li J, Guo X, Cruz DE, Gao Y, Huang T, Zeleznik OA, Ngo D, Liu S, Rosal MC, Nassir R, Paynter NP, Albert CM, Tracy RP, Durda P, Liu Y, Taylor KD, Johnson WC, Sun Q, Rimm EB, Eliassen AH, Rich SS, Rotter JI, Gerszten RE, Clish CB, Rexrode KM.

Circ Res. 2022 09 16. 131(7):601-615. PMID: 36052690