Li Tao

Li Tao (Chinese: 李涛) is a Chinese psychologist. She is a professor and a researcher, especially on topics relating to molecular genetics and mental illness.

Biography

As a student, Li worked at the National Center for Gene Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Li is a professor and researcher at West China (Huaxi) Hospital, Sichuan University. She is currently the leader of the research team there and has been on the staff at the Hospital since 1997, when she started as a postdoctoral research worker. Li has also taught molecular genetics at Tibet University Medical Science School. As director of the Mental Health Center at West China Hospital, in 2012, she led a collaboration with the University of Massachusetts Medical School in studying tobacco addiction.

Li's work focuses on the genetics of mental illness, especially relating to hereditary schizophrenia. Her work has helped encourage further research into molecular genetics in Western China. She also studies topics relating to Tibet and psychology of the people living there. Her research and contributions have been published in Biological Psychiatry, PLoS, the American Journal of Medical Genetics, The American Journal of Psychiatry, Nature, The British Journal of Psychiatry, and Psychiatry Research.