He often went to slaughterhouses and wet markets himself to buy chicken and pig livers for his experiments.
[3] From 1990 to 1992, Li worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.
He returned to the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry (now Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, SIBCB) afterwards, at a time when most Chinese students and researchers chose to stay abroad for the better living standards and research facilities.
[5] Li is married to Zhang Qin (张芹), his classmate at Nanjing University.
[5] He considers Wang Yinglai, the founding director of the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, his role model.