At present, the types and quantities of new pollutants, including drugs, personal care products, surfactants, industrial additives and flame retardants, are increasing, and the biotransformation process is often an important process for their toxic effects. Clarifying the internal regularity between the molecular structure of organic pollutants and biotransformation reactivity can provide a basic scientific basis for human health and environmental quality assessment, and help to effectively screen the metabolites of pollutants for toxicity testing and biological monitoring.

Based on the preliminary work, Professor Ji Li's research group proposed a three-phase collaborative strategy combining experiment and calculation to accurately reveal the biotransformation reaction mechanism of new organic pollutants. The relevant research results were entitled the cover paper of "Precision biotransformation of emerging pollutants by human cycle P450 using computational − experimental synergy: a case study of tris (1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate" was published online in Environmental Science & Technology.

The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Japan academic revitalization foundation and the talent start-up fund of China University of mining and technology. Professor Ji Li is the only corresponding author, China University of mining and technology is the first and corresponding author unit, and other domestic and foreign cooperation units include Zhejiang University, Kyoto University, Danish University of science and technology, etc.