Research Vision

In the adult nervous system, neurons often encounter different types of stress, such as extrinsic neuroinflammation and intrinsic endoplasmic reticulum stress. Dysfunction of the cellular stress response machinery will lead to degeneration and cell death of neurons, which is a common pathological feature of most neurodegenerative diseases. In response to a certain stress or insult, different types of neurons exhibit distinct levels of resilience/susceptibility. For instance, peripheral nervous system neurons can survive axotomy and regenerate their axons, while most central nervous system neurons cannot. A key fundamental question is: what are the molecular programs (especially at epigenetic and transcriptional level) that determine the fates of a neuron after injury, such as (1) cell death vs survival and (2) axon degeneration vs regeneration?

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The major goal of our lab is the molecular and computational dissection of neuronal stress response mechanisms in human diseases. Achieving this goal will provide insights into novel neurodegenerative diseases (such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and glaucoma) treatments by reprogramming susceptible neurons to be more resistant to disease-related stress.