Research Interests

Dr. Li is a cancer epidemiologist based at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center with research projects spanning cancer early detection/screening, etiology, and survivorship. He has significant expertise in cancer epidemiology and substantial experience in the design, leadership, and completion of multidisciplinary studies of cancer. Current research projects include: 1. A large population-based study of different molecular subtypes of breast cancer aimed at elucidating their risk factors and identifying novel subtype-specific tumor markers useful for predicting risk of disease recurrence (DOD Collaborative Innovator Award); 2. A nested case-control study of women with DCIS who did and did not go on to develop a second breast cancer aimed at developing novel epidemiologic, clinical, and molecular approaches for guiding clinical decision making for DCIS patients (R01); 3. Discovering and validating novel blood-based markers useful for the early detection of breast, colorectal, and ovarian cancers (U01); 4. Characterizing risk factors for second primary breast, lung, colorectal, and endometrial cancers among breast cancer survivors (R01); and 5. Discovering and validating novel biomarkers useful for assessing risk of recurrence among colorectal cancer survivors (R01 and U01). Selected leaderships activities include: 1. Serving as the co-PI of the Cancer Surveillance System (CSS), the Seattle-Puget Sound Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) cancer registry, 2. Chairing the DOD Breast Cancer Research Program’s Integration Panel (FY 2017), and 3. Co-chairing the 2017 AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities.

Recent Publications (PubMed)

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