Hojun Li, M.D., Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Moores Cancer Center, Office 5344

hojun@health.ucsd.edu

Endowed Assistant Professor of Pediatrics

University of California, San Diego (2024 - present)

Charles W.(1955) and Jennifer C. Johnson Clinical Investigator

Koch Institute for Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2019 - 2023)

Postdoctoral Fellow

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research (2016 - 2019)

M.D., Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology

University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine (2005 - 2012)

B.S. in Biochemistry

University of Maryland, College Park (2001 - 2005) …Go Terps!

Hojun trained in the M.D./Ph.D. program at the University of Pennsylvania, performing his graduate thesis with Kathy High quantifying the insertional mutagenesis risk of AAV vectors and developing the first methodology for in vivo genome editing. He performed Pediatrics Residency at Boston Children’s Hospital/Boston Medical Center and Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Boston Children’s Hospital. Following clinical training Hojun was a postdoctoral fellow with Harvey Lodish at the Whitehead Institute elucidating the cellular developmental mechanism of enhanced red cell production by glucocorticoids, and then established his independent lab at the MIT Koch Institute as the Charles W.(1955) and Jennifer C. Johnson Clinical Investigator. During his time as a postdoc and independent fellow Hojun attended on the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplant services at Boston Children’s  and Dana-Farber. He has been an American Society of Hematology Scholar, March of Dimes Basil O’Connor Award Scholar, a Department of Defense Career Development Independent Fellow, and an NIH Clinical Investigator (K08) Fellow, and has won teaching awards both as a resident and as an attending. In 2024, Hojun and the lab moved to the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego and Moores Cancer Center, and now also attends on the Bone Marrow Transplant service at Rady Children’s Hospital.

Meet the Team

  • Parker Côté, B.S.

    Computational Biologist

    Project: Application of single cell genomics to human blood physiology

  • Alina Luchyshyn, B.A.

    Research Associate

    Project: Epigenetic control of erythroid progenitor cell proliferation

  • Alicia Meshulam, B.S.

    Research Associate

    Project: Regulation of stem cell engraftment during transplantation

  • Thach Pham, Ph.D.

    Postdoctoral Fellow

    Project: Functional genomics of erythroid progenitor and stem cell biology in primary cell systems

  • Hannah Chae

    Undergraduate Researcher

    Project: Point-of-care molecular genetic testing

  • Kate Lu

    Undergraduate Researcher

    Project: Genome editing for stem cell immune tolerance

  • Alice Lam, B.S.

    Visiting Graduate Student

    Project: Differential pseudotemporal expression kinetics in hematopoiesis

  • Nick Chan, B.S.

    BISB Graduate Student

    Project: Kinetics and clonality of stem cell transplant engraftment

Join us!

We are always looking for highly motivated colleagues that love to do science in a fun and collaborative environment. Please get in touch with Hojun (email address above) if you are interested in coming aboard!

Alumni

We couldn’t be more proud of those for which we have had the privilege of being part of their training journey.

Jideofor Ezike (Technician), now graduate student at MIT

Swanny Lamboy-Rodriguez (Undergraduate), Ph.D. from MIT

Zoë Feder (Technician), now graduate student at Harvard

Sharon Onggo (Undergraduate), now graduate student at Johns Hopkins

Christine Goglia (Undergraduate), now graduate student at Harvard

Wilson Gomarga (Undergraduate), now graduate student at Harvard

Yenthanh Le (Undergraduate), now medical student at SUNY Stony Brook

Hoang Dinh (Undergraduate), now graduate student at UPenn

Guinevere Connelly (Technician), now graduate student at Duke

Tatum Braun (Technician), now medical student at Tufts

Orville “Kirky” Kirkland Jr. (Technician), now graduate student at Harvard

Michael Kuoch (Undergraduate and Masters student), now at Citadel, LLC

Ngoc “June” Hoang (Technician), now medical student at Drexel

Leah Hirsch (Technician), now graduate student at Yale

Erin Thompson (Undergraduate), now masters student at University of Copenhagen

Amelia Seabold (Masters student and Research associate), now graduate student at Oxford

Stuti Khandwala (Undergraduate), now technician in Jonathan Weissman’s lab at MIT

See Yeon “Nicole” Ryu (Undergraduate), completing undergraduate training at MIT

Lily Mai (Undergraduate), completing undergraduate training at Harvard

Aaron Bhattachan (Undergraduate), completing undergraduate training at Northeastern

Avery Williams (UCSD BMS grad group rotation student), now graduate student in Fisch lab at UCSD