Nan Li

Title: Assistant professor (Tenure Track)

Major: Epidemiology and Biostatistics

E-mail: linan01@pku.edu.cn

Address: 38 Xueyuan Rd , Haidian District,Beijing,China

Personal profile

Aug 2017-present	Assistant professor of Institute of Reproductive and Child Health, Peking University Health Science Center
2012-2017	Ph.D. in Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Peking University Health Science Center
2010-2012	B.S. in the Department of Computer Science & Technology, Peking University
2008-2012	B.S. in School of Basic Medical Science, Peking University Health Science Center

Brief introduction of Teaching and Research

He currently serves at the Key Laboratory of Reproductive Health, National Health Commission/Key Laboratory of Epidemiology of Major Diseases, Ministry of Education/School of Public Health, Peking University. To date, he has presided over more than 10 projects, funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality, the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST, et al. He has published more than 60 papers in academic journals, including more than 40 papers as the first/corresponding author in leading journals, such as Environment International (×2) (IF>10), Hypertension, Clinical Nutrition, and Journal of Hypertension (×3). He conducts a series of researches on women's perinatal health and birth defects through employing population-based research design, molecular epidemiology, and animal intervention experiments. He offers undergraduate courses "Introduction to Reproductive Health Epidemiology" and "Basic Introduction to Stata Statistical Software", along with postgraduate courses "Medical Research about Public Data" and "Relevant examples about birth cohort studies".

Main research directions

Epidemiology of reproductive health, Data mining in medical research

Representative scientific research projects

2020-2022 National Nature Science Foundation of China; Project grant: The association of phthalates with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and its potential mechanisms. 210,000 RMB.

2020-2021 Ministry of Science and Technology of China; Project grant: Study on the Epidemiological Characteristics and Evaluation of Prevention and Control Strategies of the COVID-19 Spreading. 4,000,000 RMB.

2022-2024 Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation; Project grant: AHRR methylation mediates polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons to induce hypertensive disorders of pregnancy through 8-OHdG. 200,000 RMB.

2019-2020 Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation; Project grant: The association of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and its potential mechanisms. 90,000 RMB.

2020-2021 Beijing outstanding talent incubation program; Project grant: The association of hydroxy polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and its potential mechanisms. 60,000 RMB.

2019-2021 Young Elite Scientist Sponsorship Program by CAST (YESS). 450,000 RMB.

2022-2023 National Clinical Research Center for Obstetrics and Gynecology (Peking University Third Hospital); Project grant: Epidemiology of related domestic violence among Chinese infertile women. 100,000 RMB.

2017-2019 The startup funding from the “Incubation” Program of China and Peking University Health Science Center (no. MU2017YB003).

10 representative papers (*Corresponding author)

1. Liu X, Na J, Liu X, Jia X, Ren M, Chen J, Han B, Xu J*, Li N*, Li Z, Wang B. Co-exposure to phthalates and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and the risk of gestational hypertension in Chinese women. Environment International, 2024, 185: 108562. (IF=11.8)

2. Jin M, Chen H, Na J, An H, Li Z*, Li N*. Passive smoking and insomnia in rural Chinese nonsmoking housewives: An environmental and genetic perspective. Environment International, 2022, 170: 107569. (IF=13.352)

3. Li N, Li Z*, Ye R*, Zhang L, Li H, Zhu Y, Li S, Yang N, Liu J, Ren A. Preconception blood pressure and risk of low birth weight and small for gestational age: a large cohort study in China. Hypertension, 2016, 68(4): 873-9.

4. Li N, Li Z*, Chen S, Yang N, Ren A, Ye R*. Effects of passive smoking on hypertension in rural Chinese nonsmoking women. Journal of Hypertension, 2015, 33(11): 2210-4. [Commented in Journal of Hypertension, 2015, 33(11): 2200-3]

5. Li N, Li Z*, Ye R*, Zhu Y, Li S, Yang N, Zhang L, Li H, Liu J, Ren A. Preconception blood pressure and risk of preterm birth: a large cohort study in China. Journal of Hypertension, 2016, 34(11): 2243-7.

6. An H, Jin M, Li Z, Zhang L, Zhang Y, Li H, Liu J, Ye R*, Li N*. Association of gestational hypertension and preeclampsia with nonsyndromic orofacial clefts in China: a large prospective cohort study. Journal of Hypertension, 2022, 40(7): 1352-8.

7. Li N, Li Z*, Ye R, Liu J, Ren A. Impact of periconceptional folic acid supplement on low birth and small for gestational age in China: a large prospective cohort study. Journal of pediatrics, 2017, 187: 105-10.

8. Li N, An H, Li Z*, Ye R*, Zhang L, Li H, Liu J. Preconception blood pressure and risk of gestational hypertension and preeclampsia: A large cohort study in China. Hypertension Research, 2020, 43(9):956-62.

9. Chen S#, Li N#, Mei Z, Ye R*, Li Z, Liu J, Serdula MK. Micronutrient supplementation during pregnancy and the risk of pregnancy-induced hypertension: A randomized clinical trial. Clinical Nutrition, 2019, 38(1): 146-51.

10. 吴博浩，金楚瑶，王慧英*，李楠*，李智文. “二孩”政策以来中国北方某三甲医院高龄产妇及产数变化情况分析.中国生育健康杂志, 2018, 29: 201-4.

Main research progress

Our team has conducted a series of studies in the reproductive health, especially hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP), through population research design, molecular epidemiology and animal intervention experiments. We found that pre-pregnancy hypertension had a significant impact on the increased risk of HDP, low birth weight, and small for gestational age infants from more than 200,000 pregnant women of a prospective cohort study (Li et al. Hypertension, 2016; Li et al. Hypertens Res, 2020). Women with HDP also had increased risk of adverse health effects among offspring in the short and long term (An et al. J Hypertens, 2022; An et al. Nutrients, 2022a; An et al. Nutrients, 2022b; An et al. BMJ Open, 2022). We also used a case-control study to find that passive smoking was significantly associated with hypertension in women of childbearing age in rural China. The greater frequency of exposure to secondhand smoke, the higher risk of hypertension will be in women (Li et al. J Hypertens, 2015). We further tried to reveal the potential effect of co-exposure to important endocrine disrupting chemicals on the occurrence of HDP. Our findings indicated that women with higher level of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon and phthalic acid esters would had increased risk of HDP, of which the co-exposure effect was bigger than the individual effect (Liu et al. Environ Int, 2024). Moreover, the mutated type of organic matter metabolism genes, especially CYP1B1, had synergic effect on the insomnia with passive smoking among housewives in rural China (Jin et al. Environ Int, 2022).

Future work

1. The etiology of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP)

Our team has previously discovered important environmental risk factors for HDP in population studies. In the next few years, we will further explore the genetics, metabolomics, proteomics and other multi-omics mechanisms of environmental risk factors for HDP in the population level. We will also verify the important small molecule markers through screening methods in animal models in order to find preventive targets for HDP.

2. Data mining in medical research

We plan to conduct epidemiological researches on reproductive health through the large-scale prospective mother-child cohort established by our team from the United States and China, the ongoing cohort of several thousand pregnant women, and public data resources (mainly including UKB, CKB, and NHANES, etc.), respectively.