The Skeletal Muscle: Plasticity, Degeneration and Epigenetics

Li Li Ji has been Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene and Exercise at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities since 2011. He served as the Director of School of Kinesiology during 2011-2017. Li Li Ji received his PhD (1985) and postdoctoral training (1985-87) at the Institute for Enzyme Research at University of Wisconsin-Madison and served as assistant and associate professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1987-1993) and associate (1994-1997) and full professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison (1997-2011), including 10 years as Chair of Kinesiology Department. Professor Ji’s research expertise is cellular and molecular exercise physiology, especially the roles of free radicals and antioxidants in muscle function, adaptation to exercise, pathogenic mechanism, cell signaling and aging. He has published ~200 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and given over 180 invited international and domestic lectures. His recent research focus has been on mitochondrial quality control and redox signaling in skeletal muscle. Professor Ji has served on many editorial boards and currently is the deputy editor-in-chief for the journal Sport Medicine and Health Science. He has been a member of the National Academy of Kinesiology (NAK) since 2006, a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) since 1990, and Fellow of the Society for Redox Biology and Medicine (SfRBM) since 2022. His scholarly work has received ~25,000 citations and earned a Google Scholar h-index of 80. Professor Ji received the prestigious Citation Award from ACSM in 2023 and was granted an Honorary Doctorate Degree (Doctor Honoris Causa) from Hungarian National University of Sport Science in 2020. He has established broad collaborations with universities and research institutions over the world. In 2023 Professor Ji received a Special Contribution Award from the Chinese Physiological Society for his decades-long collaboration with China in Exercise Physiology.