Wei Li, PhD was recently promoted to tenured full professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the UTHSC College of Pharmacy. 
Dr. Li obtained a B.S. degree in chemical physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1992. Followed by two years of graduate study in Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He traveled to New York City for his graduate study in chemistry with Professor Nick Turro at Columbia University in 1994. Upon completion of his PhD study in 1999, he took a staff position as the NMR facility manager at UTHSC followed by a tenure-track faculty appointment in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2004.
Currently research in his lab broadly focuses on two areas: (1) discovering new tubulin inhibitors binding to the colchicine binding site as potential agents against malignant melanoma; and (2) developing new synthetic, noncalcemic vitamin D3 analogs as anti-inflammation agents.
Dr. Li has published over 90 peer-reviewed papers, is an inventor of several issued or pending patents, and has been serving as the Section Editor (anti-cancer agents section) for the journal of Current Medicinal Chemistry.