About The Neurosciences Program

Dr Li is the Director of the Multiple Sclerosis/Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MS/MRI) Research Group, which was originally established in the 1980s by Professor Donald Paty. This is a multi-disciplinary group of radiologists, neurologists, computer scientists, statisticians and basic scientists working together to design, execute and analyze MRI studies in Phase I, II, III and IV multicentre clinical trials. The group has been the central MRI analysis laboratory for over 25 multi-centre, international clinical trials.

One of its first projects was the pivotal interferon trial in relapsing and remitting MS, the landmark study that established MRI as a key trial endpoint. The MRI results provided objective confirmatory evidence to the clinical endpoints which led to product approval by the US Food and Drug Administration as the first disease modifying treatment of MS. As part of its overall vision to develop better trial methodologies to improve the lives of people with neurological diseases, the Group has many ongoing collaborations including a very close working relationship with Dr Alex MacKay who heads the UBC High Field MRI Centre.

Dr MacKay, along with Dr Li and nine others obtained $8.5M funding from CFI for infrastructure relating to the UBC High Field MR Imaging Centre which has a 3T whole body MR scanner for research on humans and a 7T small bore scanner for research involving animal models of human diseases. The Centre supports a broad range on in-vivo projects, including functional MRI studies of cortical networks in schizophrenia and dyslexia as well as in normal volunteers, brain MR spectroscopy studies of multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and structural studies of osteoarthritis.