News
August, 2025: R35 funded by NIGMS (1R35GM160133-01)
The NIH has awarded an Outstanding Investigator Award grant to Dr. Li for his project “Computational Studies of Molecular Medicine for Voltage-Gated Sodium Channels”.
May 28th, 2025: REU and ARISE program
We are excited to welcome Sydney Menear, Braden Lohrey, Abdelrahman Marzouk, and Riddhi Nautiyal to the Li Group for their summer research.
(from left to right) Sydney Menear, Braden Lohrey, Abdelrahman Marzouk, and Riddhi Nautiyal May 21-23, 2025: MALTO meeting
Both Eslam and Shiva presented their research in podium talks at the 50th Annual MALTO Medicinal Chemistry & Pharmacognosy Meeting at Texas A&M University!
May 09-11, 2025: Pharm-Forum Conference
Both Ramya and Amin presented their research at the PharmForum Conference 2025, held at the UTHSC College of Pharmacy, through podium and poster sessions. Ramya received the first-place award for her poster presentation, while Amin earned first place in the podium presentation category.
Ramya earned 1st place for poster presentation
Amin earned 1st place for podium presentation April, 2025: NSF CAREER award (no. 2439983)
The NSF has awarded a Faculty Early Career Development Program grant to Dr. Li for his project “Computationally Illuminating the Molecular Interplay between N-glycosylation and Ion Channel Gating”.
Please check the news
Understanding how and why sugar molecules, shown as colorful specks, interact with proteins April 12, 2025: Mississippi Day
We showcased our research in computational chemistry and pharmacy to K–12 students and the general public during Mississippi Day.
Special thanks to Eslam and Amin for their thoughtful design of the educational activities. Feb 24, 2025:
New Publication Alert: Protein–Ligand Interactions
Michels, J., Bandarupalli, R., Akbari, A. A., Le, T., Xiao, H., Li, J., & Hom, E. F. have published a new review on Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling (JCIM) (2025) titled “Natural Language Processing Methods for the Study of Protein–Ligand Interactions” This work decode the “language” of proteins and small molecule ligands to predict protein–ligand interactions (PLIs).
February 19, 2025: Ramya Bandarupalli presented their research during the 2025 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, CA.
Ramya presenting her work at BPS February 14-19, 2025: Our group attended the 2025 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, CA.
Jing Li Lab group members presenting their research at BPS 2025 in Los Angeles. Jan 17, 2025:
New Publication Alert: Voltage-Gated Sodium Channels
Elhanafy E, Ahangar AA, Roth R, El-Din TM, Bankston JR, and Li J have published a new study on Journal of General Physiology (JGP) (2025) titled “The differential impacts of equivalent gating-charge mutations in voltage-gated sodium channels” This work advances our understanding of how specific mutations affect channel function.
Dec 12, 2024:
New Publication Alert: Acid-Sensing Ion Channel.
Bandarupalli R, Roth R, Klipp RC, Bankston JR, and Li J have published their latest study on The Journal of Physical Chemistry B (2024) titled “Molecular Insights into Single Chain Lipid Modulation of Acid-Sensing Ion Channel 3.” This research uncovers key molecular interactions affecting Acid-Sensing Ion Channel 3 modulation.
Nov 10, 2024: Amin Akbari Ahangar presents his research during the Society of Glycobiology Annual Meeting.
Sep 12, 2024:
New Publication Alert: Voltage-Gated Sodium Channels
Ahangar AA, Elhanafy E, Blanton H, and Li J have published a new study in iScience titled “Mapping Structural Distribution and Gating-Property Impacts of Disease-Associated Mutations in Voltage-Gated Sodium Channels.” This research offers key insights into the effects of mutations on these vital channels.
June 12, 2024: Kudos to Amin Akbari Ahangar, Ramya Bandarupalli, and Shiva Akhlaghi for giving podium/oral presentations at the MALTO Meeting.
May 20, 2024: Congratulations to Eslam Elhanafy for the poster presentation award during the Mid-South Biophysics Symposium at the University of Alabama.
May 20, 2024: Kudos to Amin Akbari Ahangar, Ramya Bandarupalli, and Shiva Akhlaghi for giving podium/oral presentations at the Mid-South Biophysics Symposium at the University of Alabama.
May 20, 2024: Amin Akbari Ahangar presents his research during the Mid-South Biophysics Symposium at the University of Alabama.
April 01, 2024: Congratulations to Amin Akbari Ahangar for the travel fellowship and the Young Scientist Excellence Award at MCBIOS 2024.
April 01, 2024: Dr. Jing Li and Amin Akbari Ahangar presenting lab work at MCBIOS 2024.
March 27, 2024: Eslam Elhanafy presenting his research work during GlyCORE Seminar Series Meeting at University of Mississippi.
February 10-11, 2024: Amin Akbari Ahangar and Eslam Elhanafy presented their research during the 2024 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA.
Amin presenting his work at BPS 
Eslam presenting his work at BPS February 9-14, 2024: Our group attended the 2024 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA.
Jing Li Lab group members presenting their research at BPS 2024 in Philadelphia November 8, 2023: Anton2 supercomputer allocation award: our proposal for Molecular Dynamics simulations on a specialized Anton 2 supercomputer named (Structural Impacts of PUFAs on a Human
Acid Sensing Ion Channel) has been awarded 460,000 simulation units by the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and National Research Council (NRC) at the National Academies of Science.
October 6, 2023: Our group attended the 4th Annual Bringing Chemistry to Medicine Symposium at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN.
Group Members attending 4th Annual Bringing Chemistry to Medicine Symposium at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital August 16, 2023: Congratulations to Amin Akbari Ahangar for receiving IDS Data Science and AI Fellowship by Institute for Data Science (IDS), University of Mississippi.
May 8, 2023: Li Lab has been selected as an awardee for Junior Investigator Award of GlyCORE “Elucidating Molecular Mechanisms of Gating Regulation and Subunit Modulation of N-glycosylation on Ion Channels by Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations.”
Role: Project Leader
5P20GM130460-04, NIGMS
March 24, 2023: Li Lab has been selected as an awardee for Data Science/AI Research Seed Grants “TRANSPREDICT: A Machine Learning Tool to Predict Substrate Specificity of Major Facilitator Superfamily (MFS)”
March 16, 2023: ACCESS supercomputer allocation award: our proposal for “COMPUTATIONAL STUDIES OF MODULATION MECHANISMS IN ION CHANNELS” has been awarded for Maximum Allocation by the ACCESS Resource Allocations Committee (AARC)
March 10, 2023: Congratulations to Eslam Elhanafy for receiving first place in the poster presentation category at the 2023 Graduate Student Council Research and Creative Achievement Symposium!
February 18-23, 2023: Our group attended the 2023 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA.
January 17, 2022: New member Shiva Akhlaghi joined the lab as a graduate student in our lab. Welcome, Shiva!
November 8, 2022: Anton2 supercomputer allocation award: our proposal for Molecular Dynamics simulations on a specialized Anton 2 supercomputer named (Structural Impacts of Arrhythmia-Associated Mutations on a Human
Cardiac Nav Channel) has been awarded 460,000 simulation units by the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and National Research Council (NRC) at the National Academies of Science.August 23, 2022: New member Ramya Bandarupalli joined the lab as a graduate student in our lab. Welcome, Ramya!
August 3, 2022: Congratulations to Eslam Elhanafy the winner of the Fall 2022-2023 African Caribbean Student Association (ACSA) Alumni scholarship.
March 23, 2022: Dr. Li has a new paper published in Nature Communication for the molecular mechanism of C-type inactivation in a potassium channel.
March 15, 2022: XSEDE supercomputer allocation award: our proposal for “COMPUTATIONAL STUDIES OF MODULATION MECHANISMS IN VOLTAGE-GATED ION CHANNELS” has been awarded for 3,200,000.0 Core-hours by the XSEDE Resource Allocations Committee XRAC
January 18, 2022: New member Laila Elghoneimy joined the lab as a graduate student in our lab. Welcome, Laila!
November 10, 2021: Anton2 supercomputer allocation award: our proposal for Molecular Dynamics simulations on a specialized Anton 2 supercomputer has been awarded by the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and National Research Council (NRC) at the National Academies of Science.
November 23, 2021: New member Amin Akbari Ahangar joined the lab as a graduate student in our lab. Welcome, Amin!
January 12, 2021: First member Eslam Elhanafy joined the lab as the first graduate student in our lab. Welcome, Eslam!
Jing Li Lab @ OleMiss 