Rate My Professor Deqiang Li

Deqiang Li, PhD, served as Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, from 2017 to 2022. He earned his MD from China Medical University in 1996 and his PhD from Indiana University School of Medicine in 2009. Following postdoctoral training and an instructor appointment in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine from 2011 to 2017, Li established his laboratory in the Center for Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, focusing on cardiovascular development and regeneration.

Li's research investigates epigenetic and posttranscriptional mechanisms regulating heart development, cardiomyocyte proliferation, myocardial trabeculation and compaction, and congenital heart defects. Key studies include demonstrating the essential role of epicardial histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) in suppressing microRNAs to promote growth factor production for proper ventricular wall development, published in Circulation Research in 2022. His team showed that endocardial HDAC3 is required for myocardial trabeculation (Nature Communications, 2024) and that HDAC7 promotes cardiomyocyte proliferation by suppressing myocyte enhancer factor 2 (Journal of Molecular Cell Biology, 2024). Additional publications explore m6A RNA modifications in heart development, zinc transporters in ventricular noncompaction cardiomyopathy, and fibrosis mechanisms in dilated cardiomyopathy. Li received the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund Discovery Award in 2021 for 'Mechanisms of Fibrosis in Dilated Cardiomyopathy,' an American Heart Association Transformative Project Award in 2020, and a Career Development Award in 2017. His research has garnered over 2,500 citations and is supported by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute grant R01HL153406.