Dr. Guoyan Zhao in the Department of Genetics and Dr. Erik Musiek in the Department of Neurology have been awarded R21 from the NIH’s National Institute on Aging. The title of the award is “Evaluating novel transcription factors in regulating astrocyte identity, reactivity, and their roles in neurodegenerative disease pathogenesis”.
Alzheimer disease (AD) and Parkinson disease (PD) are heterogeneous, multifactorial disease that selectively affects certain regions of the brain. Dr. Zhao’s group will use their established in vitro and in vivo mouse experimental systems and the cutting-edge technologies of spatial transcriptomics and scRNA-seq to systematically evaluate ten candidate TF in regulating astrocyte activation their roles in AD and PD pathogenesis. These TFs are excellent candidate targets for the development of effective AD or PD treatment strategies.