Xiang Li – China National Institute of Food and Drug Control

Please tell us about your background: where you grew up, studied, and why you chose the field you did.

I grew up in Huainan, Anhui Province of China. I studied biochemistry and Molecular biology at Anhui University for my bachelor's degree and Microbiology and Biochemical Pharmacy at China Pharmaceutical University for my master's degree. I have been working at China National Institute of Food and Drug Control since 2002.

What does your current position entail? How does it tie into your previous experience, and where is it going?

Since joining China National Institute of Food and Drug Control, I am mainly responsible for the quality analysis and technical research of recombinant DNA products, peptides, nucleic acids, gene therapy drugs, etc., as well as the establishment of recombinant cytokine standards and the construction of innovative drug research and development technology platform.

In what context did you first learn about light scattering and Wyatt Technology's instruments?

By reading relevant literature, we learned about the applications of light scattering detection technology in the characterization of biological macromolecules, so our laboratory purchased Wyatt's dynamic light scattering instrument and static light scattering instrument about 15 years ago for the characterization and analysis of protein, nucleic acids, viruses and other biological macromolecules.

How has your Wyatt instrumentation contributed to your research and development studies?

The Wyatt light scattering detector can perform excellent characterization of the absolute molecular, size, and aggregation of proteins, nucleic acids and viruses in the original status. Combining the light scattering detector with UV and differential refractometer, you can also analyze the protein complex to obtain the molecular weight and mass of each component of the protein and modifier. This powerful function allows us to obtain the molecular weight of the capsid and DNA, total titer, full ratio and aggregation content of AAV within a single injection and less than 30 minutes.