Stick Together:

Renhao Li, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, Medical School and GSBS

Sometimes cells need to stick together, or adhere, such as for wound healing, and sometimes they don’t, such as in development of cardiovascular disease or cancer growth. Cell adhesion is mediated by several families of proteins, called adhesion receptors, which also carry signals both into and out of cells.

Renhao Li, Ph.D.

“We are broadly interested in the structure and function of cell adhesion receptors, such as integrins and glycoprotein Ib-IX-V complex,” Li said. “The glycoprotein Ib-IX-V complex is primarily expressed in the platelets, and it helps the blood to clot properly. Malfunction of this complex leads to severe bleeding and can contribute to many cardiovascular diseases.We aim to understand the structure of the glycoprotein Ib- IX-V complex and to learn how it functions.”

Li’s work in this area began during his postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania in a lab that is renowned for protein design. He received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation with a proposal to design a novel integrin- binding ligand.

“The project did not work out as spectacularly as we had hoped,” he said. “Nevertheless, upon further reading on the integrins and other cell adhesion receptors, I became interested in the question as to how these receptors mediate signaling across the plasma membrane of the cell, a question crucial to the function and regulation of these receptors.”

He expanded his postdoctoral research into this aspect of integrin and has expanded the research to other adhesion receptors since moving to UT, where he now works in the Center for Membrane Biology at the Medical School.