Guo-li Ming | |
---|---|
Born | |
Spouse | Hongjun Song |
Academic background | |
Education | MD, 1994, Tongji Medical College PhD, Biology, 2002, University of California, San Diego |
Academic work | |
Institutions | University of Pennsylvania Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Salk Institute for Biological Studies |
Guo-li Ming is a Chinese-American neuroscientist. She is the Perelman Professor of Neuroscience and a member of the Institute of Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2019,Ming was elected to the National Academy of Medicine for "pioneering the use of patient-derived human stem cells to model genetic and environmental risk for brain disorders,which has transformed our understanding of underlying mechanisms and potential therapeutic strategies."
Ming completed her medical degree with a specialization in child and maternal care at Tongji Medical College in 1994 before moving to the United States and enrolling at the University of California,San Diego for her PhD in biology. [1] Upon arriving in North America,Ming originally planned on taking the medical board exams but found the research of her husband more interesting. [2] Upon completing her PhD,Ming conducted her postdoctoral training at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. [3]
Following her postdoctoral training,Ming became an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (JHU) in 2003. [3] In this role,she received a 2005 Klingenstein Fellowship Award in Neuroscience to fund her research project "Mechanisms of Nerve Growth and Guidance in the Adult Brain." [4] She continued this research throughout her tenure at JHU and her laboratory made numerous discoveries. Her research team discovered adult neural stem cells that are capable of self-renewal and multipotent fates. They also identified the first molecular mechanism regulating active DNA demethylation in adult neurons. [5] In 2011,Ming focused her research on Schizophrenia as she expanded on the genetic analysis conducted by Russell L. Margolis and Christopher A. Ross. She used various skin biopsy samples of family members affected with schizophrenia to develop a technique to reprogram the cells with the risk gene. [6] She later co-led a research team that revealed that combination of schizophrenia-risk genes and environmental stress right after birth could increase the likelihood of one developing schizophrenia by nearly one and a half times. [7] Later in 2011,Ming and Song found definitive evidence suggesting that DNA demethylation happens in non-dividing neurons. This discovery confirmed that DNA methylation changes occurred independently of cell division. [8]
During the 2015–16 Zika virus epidemic,Ming and Song began studying how the virus caused brain damage. They found that the virus was most dangerous in the first trimester of pregnancy and even low doses of the virus for short periods of time could cause damage. [9] They then used human skin cells to create a forebrain organoid with which to study the Zika virus. [10] In 2017,Ming and Song left JHU to become professors in the department of Neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. [5]
In 2019,Ming was elected to the National Academy of Medicine for "pioneering the use of patient-derived human stem cells to model genetic and environmental risk for brain disorders,which has transformed our understanding of underlying mechanisms and potential therapeutic strategies." [11]
Ming met her husband Hongjun Song while they were both growing up in Wuhan,China. [9] They have two children together,a son and daughter. Their son Max created illustrations depicting his parents research for the covers of Nature Neuroscience and The Journal of Neuroscience . [12]
Microcephaly is a medical condition involving a smaller-than-normal head. Microcephaly may be present at birth or it may develop in the first few years of life. Since brain growth is correlated with head growth,people with this disorder often have an intellectual disability,poor motor function,poor speech,abnormal facial features,seizures and dwarfism.
Immediate early genes (IEGs) are genes which are activated transiently and rapidly in response to a wide variety of cellular stimuli. They represent a standing response mechanism that is activated at the transcription level in the first round of response to stimuli,before any new proteins are synthesized. IEGs are distinct from "late response" genes,which can only be activated later,following the synthesis of early response gene products. Thus IEGs have been called the "gateway to the genomic response". The term can describe viral regulatory proteins that are synthesized following viral infection of a host cell,or cellular proteins that are made immediately following stimulation of a resting cell by extracellular signals.
James H. "Jim" Fallon is an American neuroscientist. He is professor of psychiatry and human behavior and emeritus professor of anatomy and neurobiology in the University of California,Irvine School of Medicine. His research interests include adult stem cells,chemical neuroanatomy and circuitry,higher brain functions,and brain imaging.
Seymour S. Kety was an American neuroscientist who was credited with making modern psychiatry a rigorous and heuristic branch of medicine by applying basic science to the study of human behavior in health and disease. After Kety died,his colleague Louis Sokoloff noted that:"He discovered a method for measuring blood flow in the brain,was the first scientific director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and produced the most-definitive evidence for the essential involvement of genetic factors in schizophrenia."
Zika fever,also known as Zika virus disease or simply Zika,is an infectious disease caused by the Zika virus. Most cases have no symptoms,but when present they are usually mild and can resemble dengue fever. Symptoms may include fever,red eyes,joint pain,headache,and a maculopapular rash. Symptoms generally last less than seven days. It has not caused any reported deaths during the initial infection. Mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy can cause microcephaly and other brain malformations in some babies. Infections in adults have been linked to Guillain–Barrésyndrome (GBS).
Richard Lewis Huganir is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Neuroscience and Psychological and Brain Sciences,Director of the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience,and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Brain Science Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has joint appointments in the Department of Biological Chemistry and the Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Zika virus is a member of the virus family Flaviviridae. It is spread by daytime-active Aedes mosquitoes,such as A. aegypti and A. albopictus. Its name comes from the Ziika Forest of Uganda,where the virus was first isolated in 1947. Zika virus shares a genus with the dengue,yellow fever,Japanese encephalitis,and West Nile viruses. Since the 1950s,it has been known to occur within a narrow equatorial belt from Africa to Asia. From 2007 to 2016,the virus spread eastward,across the Pacific Ocean to the Americas,leading to the 2015–2016 Zika virus epidemic.
Gladstone Institutes is an independent,non-profit biomedical research organization whose focus is to better understand,prevent,treat and cure cardiovascular,viral and neurological conditions such as heart failure,HIV/AIDS and Alzheimer's disease. Its researchers study these diseases using techniques of basic and translational science. Another focus at Gladstone is building on the development of induced pluripotent stem cell technology by one of its investigators,2012 Nobel Laureate Shinya Yamanaka,to improve drug discovery,personalized medicine and tissue regeneration.
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A cerebral organoid,or brain organoid,describes an artificially grown,in vitro, miniature organ resembling the brain. Cerebral organoids are created by culturing pluripotent stem cells in a three-dimensional rotational bioreactor,and they develop over a course of months. The brain is an extremely complex system of heterogeneous tissues and consists of a diverse array of neurons. This complexity has made studying the brain and understanding how it works a difficult task in neuroscience,especially when it comes to neurodegenerative diseases. The purpose of creating an in vitro neurological model is to study these diseases in a more simple and variable space. This 3D model is free of many potential in vivo limitations. The varying physiology between human and other mammalian models limits the scope of study in neurological disorders. Cerebral organoids are synthesized tissues that contain several types of nerve cells and have anatomical features that recapitulate regions of the cortex observed in brains. Cerebral organoids are most similar to layers of neurons called the cortex and choroid plexus. In some cases,structures similar to the retina,meninges and hippocampus can form. Stem cells have the potential to grow into many different types of tissues,and their fate is dependent on many factors. Below is an image showing some of the chemical factors that can lead stem cells to differentiate into various neural tissues;a more in-depth table of generating specific organoid identity has been published since. Similar techniques are used on stem cells used to grow cerebral organoids.
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Daniel R. Weinberger is a professor of psychiatry,neurology and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University and Director and CEO of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development,which opened in 2011.
The Lieber Institute for Brain Development (LIBD) is a nonprofit research center located in Baltimore,Maryland,that studies brain development issues such as schizophrenia and autism. The cause of most neuropsychiatric disorders remains unknown and current therapies such as antipsychotics and antidepressants treat symptoms rather than the underlying illness. Lieber is working to unravel the biological basis of these brain disorders and is developing therapies to treat or prevent their development.
Ming Tso Tsuang is an American psychiatrist and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California,San Diego. He is considered a pioneering researcher in the genetic epidemiology of schizophrenia and other severe mental disorders. Tsuang has authored and co-authored more than 600 publications and serves as founding and senior editor of the American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B.
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