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Research Interests

Aging   &   AD/PD   &   EVs 

Aging increases the risk of diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and last but not least neurodegenerative diseases. The molecular and cellular changes that occur during aging lead to neuronal degeneration in age-related neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's diseases. We focus on elucidating the cellular and biochemical signaling mechanisms that lead to neuronal degeneration and brain aging. We also focus on identifying new AD/PD risk factors by RNA-seq and ATAC-seq in patient-derived neurons and investigating the roles of extracellular vesicles in the pathogenesis of AD/PD. In order to develop therapeutics for AD/PD, we are engineering extracellular vesicles to load and deliver diverse therapeutics proteins, including CRISPR-based tools, to the brain.

On-Going Projects

Aging

  • Investigating the effect of intermittent fasting on neurogenesis

  • Investigating the effect of intermittent fasting on vascular diseases

  • Developing anti-aging strategies via EV-based cellular reprogramming

Alzheimer's disease

  • Drug discovery projects spanning the range from target validation and initial high-throughput screening to lead identification

  • CRISPR screening for identifying novel genes that play significant roles in tauopathy and amyloidopathy

  • Generation of patient-derived iPSC isogenic lines for APOE to elucidate the roles of APOE in the pathogenesis of AD

  • Investigating the roles of extracellular vesicles in the pathogenesis of AD

Parkinson's disease

  • Developing dopaminergic neuron targeting ADSC-derived extracellular vesicles 

  • Developing engineered extracellular vesicles carrying therapeutic proteins for PD

  • Investigating the molecular mechanism underpinning the pathogenesis of PD

Extracellular vesicles

  • Developing EV-based intracellular protein delivery system 

  • EV-based CRISPR-based tool delivery for gene editing

  • EV-based CRISPR-based tool delivery for epigenome editing

  • Developing engineered-EVs displaying a decoy receptor for various diseases

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