What should Haoyang Li, Ph.D., call himself? Biologist? Virologist? Immunologist?
“Human immunity engineer, rather than those traditional classes of scientific roles,” says Li. “I would love to discover something new about the human immune system and create something novel that can save lives based on knowledge from my lab.”
Li first joined La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) as a postdoctoral researcher in the Saphire Lab. In this position, he pushed medical research forward by harnessing an imaging technique called cryo-electron microscopy. Li uses cryo-electron microscopy to zoom in to see viral proteins, as well as therapeutic antibodies and key molecules that facilitate or regulate the human body’s responses against infectious diseases.
Li was recently named an LJI Research Assistant Professor. He’s now opening his own lab and expanding his work to investigate cancer treatment strategies and autoimmune diseases as well.
Here’s how he got his start—and what he hopes to provide to the world.
Q: Did you want to be a scientist when you were growing up?
Li: I did, but the initial plan was not to study biomedicine. When I was really young, I wanted to investigate the stars. My parents purchased an astronomical telescope for me when I was ten, and I spent all my time using it. Then I found out I had to wear glasses, and I thought I might lose the chance to be an astronaut or an astronomer.
Then in 2003 came the SARS-CoV-1 epidemic in China. Many people were infected in my hometown, and I knew some of them personally. As a high school student, I got quarantined at home for four months. During the quarantine time, I had a book with basic information on virology. I remember it was called How Pathogenic Viruses Work? That was the start for me.
When I joined the Saphire Lab, I realized that microscopy is similar to using a telescope. With a telescope, you want to see things that are far away, that appear tiny. With a microscope, you want to see something inside the body, something tiny. I could partially realize my idea and my passion by using the microscope.
Q: It sounds like your parents were very supportive of your curiosity about science.
Li: Exactly. My hometown is a small city, and there were no shops in my hometown that sold astronomical telescopes. So my father needed to take an overnight train to Beijing to buy one for me. That definitely inspired me a lot.
Q: What does it mean to be an immunoengineer?
Li: We could think about the approach to building a bridge, a task for a typical engineer. First, we need to know why we need a bridge and find the best crossing point in the canyon. In immunoengineering, this means we plan to cure a disease and figure out which molecular interaction could be the key to addressing the problem.
Second, a practical blueprint is needed for the bridge. Structural analysis-guided mechanical discovery on a molecular drug target provides the detailed blueprint for novel immunotherapeutic or vaccine innovation. Over the past decade, advances in cryo-electron microscopy have significantly facilitated our understanding of important but previously unsolvable protein architectures, enabling faster, more accurate blueprints for drug or vaccine design.
Third, we need to identify the most appropriate building blocks for the bridge. With various approaches at hand, we could engineer antibodies, peptides, proteins, and even live cells to boost or regulate our immunity for solutions.
Q: Why is LJI a good place to launch your new lab?
Li: The amazing people, resources, and culture. Here we have world-class experts and instrumentation for science, and, importantly, people complement each other in their expertise and wish to cover for one another.
For example, my postdoc work focused on investigating antibody-based therapeutics and designing novel vaccines against viral diseases. However, unless we can visualize the exact details of how viruses and antibodies interact, we can’t know how to improve therapeutic antibodies or what kinds of molecules should be engineered for next-generation vaccines. One of the strengths here at LJI, the cutting-edge cryo-electron microscopy platform, has been illustrating those interactions very quickly and precisely, which form the basis of my research projects. I received sufficient support from others and had the opportunity to refine my vision and skills so I could better support them.
I know many people at LJI have been growing with similar routes, but with different expertise, making LJI a highly collaborative community. This environment also incubates my curiosity and vision, ranging from antiviral immunity to a broader scope spanning cancer immunotherapy and autoimmune diseases.
In addition, at LJI, I had the great opportunity to closely observe and learn how successful scientists run their labs in diverse ways, inspiring me in my own team building.
Q: Now that you’re a dad, do you have anything you do to encourage or inspire your own kids when it comes to science?
Li: Yes, I’ve already purchased a small microscope for my older daughter. We’ve been making some slides by using things around us, like leaves and small insects. I’ve also shown my daughters some of my cryo-EM images, and they like to say, “Oh, that one looks like a rooster,” or “That one looks like a donut.”
Inspiration is important just for my own kids. Most of my future lab members will be younger than me, and I want to build a supportive and fair environment that keeps everyone enjoying science. Scientific research is not easy. What I wish next-gen researchers to gain from my team is resilience in the face of uncertainty and curiosity about the unknown.
Q: What do you enjoy most about being a scientist?
Li: Immunology is different from most other scientific fields. Your discoveries have the potential to directly save people and their families.
I was talking with my wife the other day about what I really want to give to the world before I leave. That shall be something that nobody has discovered before. This work is difficult, but if one of my projects can save one life, then I think my whole life will have been successful.
