X. Sean Li
Xue (Sean) Li, PhD, leads a research lab at Cedars-Sinai’s Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, investigating sex differences in development and diseases. Dr. Li began his career in embryology, defining transcriptional networks that control the balance between self-renewal and differentiation in organ-specific progenitors. He is known for discovering a novel EYA1-family of protein phosphatases that function as master transcription cofactors. From 2003 to 2018, he continued his work at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, sponsored by multiple NIH grants and in 2013, his lab began to focus on sex differences in bladder cancer. Major discoveries include the discovery of lysine demethylase 6A (KDM6A) as the first prototypical sex-biased bladder tumor suppressor and androgen signaling promoting exhaustion of CD8+ T cells. He joined Cedar-Sinai in 2020, continuing his work in sex differences of developmental biology and cancers which include topics such as single cell biology, epigenetics, immunology, and the microbiome. Dr. Li has published original articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Nature, Science, Cancer Cell, PNAS and JCI.