Jingjing Li

Dr Jingjing Li is a Research Scientist at the St Vincent’s Centre for Applied Medical Research (AMR), a Conjoint Lecturer in the School of Clinical Medicine, and an affiliate of the School of Biomedical Engineering at UNSW Sydney. Trained in biomedical engineering, she brings expertise in microfluidics, stem cell biology and bioinformatics. She completed her PhD and postdoctoral training under A/Prof Robert Nordon, where she investigated how pulsatile fluid shear stress modulates human blood development using microfluidic model mimicking foetal circulation, live cell imaging of human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) differentiation and single-cell analysis of developing blood and cardiovascular niches. During her postdoctoral research, she contributed to a CRCP project and led the development of microbioreactor-based stem cell engineering processes for cell and gene therapy applications. She also led the work of bioengineered iPSC-based on-chip models of human haematopoietic and cardiovascular development. She currently works within the Blood, Stem Cell and Cancer Research Program led by Professor David Ma, developing stem cell models to investigate the regulation and function of human haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs). Her research focuses on ageing-associated clonal haematopoiesis, aiming to define how somatic mutations alter stem cell function and drive progression to pre-malignant states and haematological malignancies. She also examines how extrinsic stress signals modulate these processes and seeks to identify mechanisms that could be targeted to control mutant clonal expansion. pluripotent stem cells, haematopoietic stem cell, haematopoiesis, stem cell therapy, microfluidic model, cardiovascular development