World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!

D-Index & Metrics

Biology and Biochemistry

D-Index
83
Citations
296844
World Ranking
3404
National Ranking
1714

Overview

Heng Li is affiliated with Harvard University in the United States and specializes in the field of Biochemistry, Genetics, and Molecular Biology. Their research spans 272 publications, with a notable emphasis on subfields such as Molecular Biology, Plant Science, Immunology, Genetics, and Infectious Diseases.

Their work extensively covers topics including Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies, Chromosomal and Genetic Variations, RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms, CRISPR and Genetic Engineering, Immune Cell Function and Interaction, T-cell and B-cell Immunology, as well as Genomic variations and chromosomal abnormalities.

Heng Li has contributed to numerous scientific venues throughout their career. Frequent publication sites include Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) with 43 publications, bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) with 37, arXiv (Cornell University) with 10, Bioinformatics with 9, and Nature with 8 publications.

Selected recent papers authored or co-authored by Heng Li include:

  • New strategies to improve minimap2 alignment accuracy, 2021, Bioinformatics
  • The complete sequence of a human genome, 2022, Science
  • Twelve years of SAMtools and BCFtools, 2021, GigaScience
  • Haplotype-resolved assembly of diploid genomes without parental data, 2022, Nature Biotechnology
  • The Human Pangenome Project: a global resource to map genomic diversity, 2022, Nature

Collaborations form an important aspect of Heng Li's research. Frequent co-authors include Haoyu Cheng, Xiaowen Feng, Sergey Koren, Erich D. Jarvis, and Tobias Marschall, reflecting a network of interdisciplinary partnerships within genomics and computational biology.

Best Publications

  • The Sequence Alignment/Map format and SAMtools

    Heng Li;Bob Handsaker;Alec Wysoker;Tim Fennell

  • Fast and accurate short read alignment with Burrows–Wheeler transform

    Heng Li;Richard Durbin

  • A global reference for human genetic variation.

    Adam Auton;Gonçalo R. Abecasis;David M. Altshuler;Richard M. Durbin

  • Minimap2: pairwise alignment for nucleotide sequences

    Heng Li

  • Aligning sequence reads, clone sequences and assembly contigs with BWA-MEM

    Heng Li

  • A statistical framework for SNP calling, mutation discovery, association mapping and population genetical parameter estimation from sequencing data

    Heng Li

  • Accurate whole human genome sequencing using reversible terminator chemistry

    David R. Bentley;Shankar Balasubramanian;Harold P. Swerdlow;Harold P. Swerdlow;Geoffrey P. Smith

  • A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome

    Richard E. Green;Johannes Krause;Adrian W. Briggs;Tomislav Maricic

  • Mapping short DNA sequencing reads and calling variants using mapping quality scores

    Heng Li;Jue Ruan;Richard Durbin

  • Haplotype-resolved de novo assembly using phased assembly graphs with hifiasm.

    Haoyu Cheng;Gregory T. Concepcion;Xiaowen Feng;Haowen Zhang

  • Efficient Architecture-Aware Acceleration of BWA-MEM for Multicore Systems

    Vasimuddin;Sanchit Misra;Heng Li;Srinivas Aluru

  • Inference of human population history from individual whole-genome sequences

    Heng Li;Richard Durbin

  • The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains

    Kay Prüfer;Fernando Racimo;Nick Patterson;Flora Jay

  • Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia

    David Reich;Richard E. Green;Martin Kircher;Johannes Krause

  • A high-coverage genome sequence from an archaic Denisovan individual

    Matthias Meyer;Martin Kircher;Marie Theres Gansauge;Heng Li

  • Accurate circular consensus long-read sequencing improves variant detection and assembly of a human genome.

    Aaron M. Wenger;Paul Peluso;William J. Rowell;Pi-Chuan Chang

  • Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans

    Iosif Lazaridis;Iosif Lazaridis;Nick Patterson;Alissa Mittnik;Gabriel Renaud

  • The Simons Genome Diversity Project: 300 genomes from 142 diverse populations

    Swapan Mallick;Swapan Mallick;Swapan Mallick;Heng Li;Mark Lipson;Iain Mathieson

  • The sequence and de novo assembly of the giant panda genome

    Ruiqiang Li;Wei Fan;Geng Tian;Hongmei Zhu

  • A draft sequence for the genome of the domesticated silkworm (Bombyx mori).

    Qingyou Xia;Zeyang Zhou;Cheng Lu

Frequent Co-Authors

David Reich
David Reich Harvard Medical School
Swapan Mallick
Swapan Mallick Harvard Medical School
Gane Ka-Shu Wong
Gane Ka-Shu Wong University of Alberta
Richard Durbin
Richard Durbin University of Cambridge
huanming yang
huanming yang Beijing Genomics Institute
Yue-Wei Guo
Yue-Wei Guo Chinese Academy of Sciences
Wei Tang
Wei Tang Chinese Academy of Sciences
Nadin Rohland
Nadin Rohland Harvard University
Ruiqiang Li
Ruiqiang Li Novogene (China)
Lars Bolund
Lars Bolund Aarhus University

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