Journal of Nutrition and Health Sciences

Dr. Yanyan Li is currently an Assistant Professor in Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences at Montclair State University. Dr. Li received her Ph.D. in Food Science and Nutrition from Ohio State University in 2011, and joined Montclair State University in 2012.

Dr. Li’s research endeavors center around several critical aspects of bioactive food components with cancer chemopreventive properties, with the use of interdisciplinary knowledge and techniques. In particular, her work on the effects of bioactives from cruciferous vegetables on cancer stem cells has great impact nationally and internationally and has drawn lots of attention from both academia and industry.

As a young scientist, she has already published numerous papers in peer-reviewed, high-impact scientific journals such as Clinical Cancer Research, The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, Molecular Nutrition and Food Research, Molecular Pharmaceutics, Drug Resistance Updates, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Future Oncology, Biochemical Pharmacology. She has been invited to present her research findings at many national and international conferences. In addition to reviewing manuscripts for a number of journals (e.g., Cancer Letters, Anti-Cancer Drugs, Future Oncology), she is also a review board member of The Journal of Food Chemistry and Nutrition.

My research focuses several critical aspects of bioactive food components with cancer chemopreventive properties

• Discovery of bioactive food components targeting cancer stem cells, elucidation of the underlying molecular mechanisms, and evaluation of the efficacy of these bioactives in combination with traditional cancer therapy approaches.
• Development of extracts and functional food products enriched with bioactive components.
• Pharmacokinetic/Pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) characterization in preclinical and clinical studies to establish the efficacy and safety profiles of bioactives alone and in combination with traditional cancer therapy approaches.
• Human observational and intervention study to evaluate the effectiveness of nutrition education programs in community.