Dr. Hongyan Li

Director of Oncology

Dr. Li has over 30 years of experience in pharmacology. She authored 5 patents and over 50 peer-reviewed publications. She specializes in pre-clinical studies of anticancer therapies and diabetic complications prevention, focusing on pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, and general pharmacological tests.

Prior to joining Melior Discovery in April 2022, Dr. Li was responsible for managing the Radiation Oncology Department and Antitumor Assessment Core Facility at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for over 8 years. She focused on radiation-induced immune response as well as establishing PDX (patient derived xenograft) models and orthotopic xenograft models.

Dr. Li is proficient in evaluating various anti-tumor therapies, including CAR-T, NK, antibodies, oligonucleotides, small molecules, nanoparticles, etc. In addition, she has expertise in immunological techniques such as FACS, Multiplex Cytokine Assays, immune-histochemistry, immuno-cytochemistry, and ELISA. She is also an expert in IVIS technique and had skillfully executed in vivo/in vitro imaging via bioluminescence.

Dr. Li earned her B.S. from Shanghai Medical University and Ph.D. from Peking Union Medical College, China. During her Ph.D. study, she led the R&D of Nicousamide to phase I clinical trial. She received post-doctoral training at National Institutes of Health, where she developed an ultra-sensitive, highly specific HPLC assay for measuring vitamin C levels in red blood cells and supported clinic pharmacokinetics study in cancer patients treated with vitamin C.

In addition to enjoying the success at work, Dr. Li likes cooking, gardening, and traveling with family and friends.

We chose Melior Discovery because they were responsive and cost effective. We are staying with them as a chosen scientific partner because of their thoughtful scientific input to experimental design and attention to detail. Their expertise and flexibility allowed us to quickly adapt the study design and evaluate additional outcome measures to pursue unexpected activity.
Sridharan Rajamani, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist
Gilead Sciences
I have been working with Melior on a number of projects over the course of a few years now. They have been a great partner throughout this time. The scientists whom I have worked with have been great problem-solvers and were customer focused.
Jay Lichter
Avalon Ventures
Melior provided State-of-the-art Preclinical Pharmacology Support for a period of nearly a year where a series of in vivo studies were completed on a weekly basis. The staff was extremely user-friendly and the operational processes were excellent. I can recommend Melior without reservation.
Richard DiMarchi, PhD
Cox Professor of Chemistry & Gill Chair in Biomolecular Sciences Indiana University, Department of Chemistry
Because Melior could do the orthotopic intracranial implants, we were able to do survival studies with brain tumor-bearing animals that were treated with our therapy, showing a beautiful survival with our agent versus control. Talk about something that gets your investors going! These beautiful survival curves with our agent versus control and visual photos are in all of our investor decks because… it's powerful.
Bruce Ruggeri, Ph.D.
Modifi Bio
Melior works in many therapeutic areas, like CNS, inflammatory disease, GI, cardiovascular, and oncology. I was very pleased that when it came to doing tumor studies, both subcutaneous and intracranial, they did them well. They reported on the studies on time and did the data analysis really well.
Bruce Ruggeri, Ph.D.
Modifi Bio
Their areas of expertise are extensive, and they are very experienced, responsive, and flexible in terms of how the study is run. Their pricing is reasonable, making them the best option for a young, not well-funded company like ours.
Maxine Gowen
Tamuro Bio
Melior’s team was very experienced and knowledgeable. They were always very open to suggestions and questions, spending a lot of time helping us feel comfortable with the study design. I would give them very high marks.
Maxine Gowen
Tamuro Bio
The most important factors in choosing to work with Melior were the fit between the tests they could run and our needs, as well as their tight budget and proximity. Melior was the best fit for our research goals.
Ira Spector
SFA Therapeutics