Li obtained his bachelor's degree in chemical biology from Xiamen University and a master's and doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. He developed a chemical proteomics approach that is the only means of quantifying the activity of different subunits of the proteasome in complex biological systems and is published in Nature Protocols. The method is widely used by more than ten laboratories in Europe and the United States for the screening of novel proteasome inhibitor drugs and is accepted as a concept and case studies in chemical biology. He established a mutually orthogonal bio-orthogonal chemical method for the simultaneous labeling of a variety of biological molecules in vivo provides a new possibility, the results published in the top chemical journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.