Biography:Xia Li

Xia Li is a scientist based at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, USA. She is known for her work on feline sensory studies, including research as to why cats cannot taste sweets. She and her collaborator Dr. Joseph Brand concluded that modern cats have lost function in an obsolete taste receptor, removing the ability to taste sweets, unlike their prehistoric ancestors. Her accomplishments were featured in the inaugural issue of PLoS Genetics and in the December 2005 issue of Catnip magazine.

External links

• Sarah Graham, "Why Cats Don't Cotton to Sweets Explained", Scientific American online, 25 July 2005
• Xia Li, Weihua Li, Hong Wang, Jie Cao, Kenji Maehashi, Liquan Huang, Alexander A Bachmanov, Danielle R Reed, Véronique Legrand-Defretin, Gary K Beauchamp, Joseph G Brand, "Pseudogenization of a Sweet-Receptor Gene Accounts for Cats' Indifference toward Sugar", PLoS Genet 1(1), July 2005