Xing-Cong Li
Principal Scientist in the National Center for Natural Products Research and Research Professor in Pharmacognosy
Dr. Li’s interests include analysis, isolation, structure elucidation, and synthesis of bioactive natural products, with an emphasis on discovery of novel lead compounds for development of pharmaceutical and agrochemical products.
Research Interests
- Discovery of antimicrobial natural products as molecular probes to uncover novel drug targets or as leads for the development of new drugs for the treatment of life-threatening fungal and bacterial infections.
- Synthesis of natural products-based antimicrobial compounds for structure-activity relationship study and development of these compounds as potential drug leads, topical antifungal agents, food preservatives, or cosmetics.
- Development of natural product dereplication approaches to facilitate lead discovery.
- Application of computational modeling methods to determine absolute configuration of bioactive natural products.
- Characterization of agrochemicals to develop novel biopesticides and biotimulants.
Biography
Dr. Xing-Cong Li is a Principal Scientist in the National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR) at the University of Mississippi, USA. Over a period of 25 years at NCNPR, he has developed his expertise in natural products discovery. He has isolated and characterized a large number of different classes of antifungal and antibacterial natural products from terrestrial plants, marine organisms, and microbes. He has also developed synthetic approaches to synthesize lead compounds and their analogues for antifungal drug development. In recent years, he has expanded into the area of discovery of new chemotypes of cannabinoids from plant-derived essential oils, with an ultimate goal to develop mechanically new anti-depressants to manage depressive disorders.
Dr. Li’s contributions to science are reflected in more than 120 peer-reviewed publications (h-index 46, Google Scholar) in the research areas of antimicrobial natural products discovery, development of natural product dereplication approaches, and determination of absolute configuration of natural products by computational chemistry. Dr. Li served scientific communities as Editor-in-Chief for Research and Reports in Medicinal Chemistry, Associate Editor for Current Organic Chemistry and Plant Metabolism and Chemodiversity, an editorial board member for seven journals, and a reviewer for the NIH Study Sections and the US Department of Defense Infectious Diseases Panel.
Education
B.S. Pharmaceutical Science, Shanghai Medical University (1987)
M.S. No Match for Conversion, Kunming Medical University (1990)
Ph.D. Pharmaceutical Science, Hiroshima University (1995)