Membrane Biologist Wins LBJ Research Award

When Renhao Li, Ph.D., submitted a grant to the American Heart Association earlier this year, he was hoping only to get funding to continue his studies of a platelet receptor needed for proper hemostatic functions.

Renhao Li, Ph.D.

Li received the AHA grant, $124,000 over two years. And he received much more – his grant application, “Intracellular Regulation of Ectodomain Shedding of Glycoprotein Ib-alpha,” was ranked highest of the 91 applications to the AHA, Texas Affiliate, from new investigators for the year, which resulted in his receipt of the prestigious Lyndon Baines Johnson Research Award for 2005.

Li is assistant professor in the Center for Membrane Biology and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston and UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston.

“Dr. Li was the first new faculty member recruited to the Center for Membrane Biology, and we are pleased his research program is taking off so well. He is a superb experimentalist, as is evidenced by this new award and his recent Welch research grant,” said John Spudich, M.D., holder of the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Chemistry and director of the Center for Membrane Biology.

“We are certainly proud of Dr. Li’s accomplishments,” added Rodney Kellems, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. “This is a great recognition for him and for the Medical School. In addition to this recent accolade, he also has held a prestigious Howard Temin Award from the National Cancer Institute.”

A native of China, Li received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and did postdoctoral work in biophysics and hematology at the University of Pennsylvania.

His research focuses on elucidating the three-dimensional organization of the platelet glycoprotein Ib-IX-V complex – the lack of which leads to severe bleeding disorders. It is also involved in many cardiovascular diseases, including stroke.

“Since the shedding of a key subunit of this complex may determine the half-life of platelets in the body and how long platelet concentrates can be stored for transfusion, it is important for us to understand what regulates the shedding process and how. The trans-subunit regulation mechanism we hypothesize is novel, and is probably why the grant received such a high score,” Li said.

By Darla Brown, Medical School