Hongjun Song | |
---|---|
Born | China |
Spouse | Guo-li Ming |
Academic background | |
Education | BSc, Biology, 1992, Peking University MA, MPhil, Biology, 1995, Columbia University PhD, Biology, 1998, University of California, San Diego |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Johns Hopkins University |
Hongjun Song is a Chinese-American neurologist and stem cell biologist. He is the Perelman Professor of Neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine's Department of Neuroscience and co-director of the Institute for Regenerative Mediacine Neurodevelopment and Regeneration Program. In 2020,Song was elected a Member of the National Academy of Medicine for "revealing unexpected dynamics and plasticity of the neuronal epigenome,as well as its functions under physiological and pathological conditions."
Song completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology at Peking University in 1992 before moving to North America and enrolling at Columbia University for his Master of Science degree. He graduated from Columbia in 1995 and he subsequently enrolled at the University of California,San Diego for his PhD in Biology. [1]
Following his PhD,Song became an assistant professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University's Institute for Cell Engineering (ICE) and its Program for Neuroregeneration and Repair (NeuroICE). In this role,he studied how stem cells self-renewed and how adult nerve stem cells become nerves. In 2006,he received the McKnight Scholar Award to help him establish an independent laboratory. [2] The following year,he led a research team that tracked the chemical signals received by newly made nerve cells in adult mice hippocampus. They found that month-old hippocampal nerves shared similar activity to nerves in a developing child. [3] As a result of his research into understanding how adult neural stem cells mature,Song was named the co-recipient of the 2008 Young Investigator Award from the Society for Neuroscience. [4] In 2009,he participated in a research team that used the drug mTOR to rescue impaired nerve cells found damaged in patients suffering from schizophrenia. [5]
Song's research broke out in 2011 as he oversaw a research team concerned with DNA chemical changes as they related to cancers,psychiatric disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. His team found that the presence or absence of a methyl group at specific locations chemically alters DNA and changes the expression of the genes. [6] [7] Following this discovery,his research team also determined that DNA modifications in non-dividing brain cells were not as stable as previously thought. They found that the cells underwent large-scale dynamic changes as a result of stimulated brain activity. [8] In 2013,Song explored the relationship between various antidepressant drugs and the protein sFRP3. He found that the therapies and drugs commonly used to combat depression specifically altered the amount of sFRP3 in the brain. His research team found that there were three variations of the gene that demonstrated better response to therapy because they undergo less gene activity. [9] Song also collaborated with his wife Guo-li Ming to link 15q11.2 variations and their effect on the developing brain. They found that variations of the genome labelled 15q11.2 were linked to schizophrenia and autism. The loss of 15q11.2 alters the skeletons of developing brain cells,which in turn disrupts the orderly layers those cells would normally form. [10] As a result of his research success,Song was recognized by Thomson Reuters as being among the most influential researcher in his field in 2014. [11]
During the 2015–16 Zika virus epidemic,Song continued to collaborate with Ming as they produced the first direct evidence that Zika causes microcephaly by selectively attacking brain-building stem cells. [12] [13] The husband and wife pair were soon recruited by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania to become full professors in their Department of Neuroscience. [14]
In 2020,Song was elected a Member of the National Academy of Medicine for "revealing unexpected dynamics and plasticity of the neuronal epigenome,as well as its functions under physiological and pathological conditions." [15] The following year,he was also elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his studies into "how epigenetic and epitranscriptomic mechanisms impact neurodevelopment and brain plasticity." [16] In 2022,he was again recognized as being among the most influential scientists in his field by Thomson Reuters. [17] Song also received the 2022 Landis Award for Outstanding Mentorship from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for his "dedication to superior mentorship and training in neuroscience research." [18]
Song met his wife Guo-li Ming while they were both growing up in Wuhan,China. [19] 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 . [20]
Forkhead box protein P2 (FOXP2) is a protein that,in humans,is encoded by the FOXP2 gene. FOXP2 is a member of the forkhead box family of transcription factors,proteins that regulate gene expression by binding to DNA. It is expressed in the brain,heart,lungs and digestive system.
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. Brain development is often affected;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.
Fred "Rusty" Gage is an American geneticist known for his discovery of stem cells in the adult human brain. Gage is a former president (2018–2023) of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies,where he holds the Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Disease and works in the Laboratory of Genetics.
The Perelman School of Medicine,commonly known as Penn Med,is the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania,one of seven Ivy League medical schools in the United States. The medical school is based in Philadelphia. Founded in 1765,it was the first medical school in the United States.
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Glutamate receptor delta-1 subunit also known as GluD1 or GluRδ1 is a transmembrane protein encoded by the GRID1 gene. A C-terminal GluD1 splicing isoform has been described based on mRNA analysis.
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.
Behavioral epigenetics is the field of study examining the role of epigenetics in shaping animal and human behavior. It seeks to explain how nurture shapes nature,where nature refers to biological heredity and nurture refers to virtually everything that occurs during the life-span. Behavioral epigenetics attempts to provide a framework for understanding how the expression of genes is influenced by experiences and the environment to produce individual differences in behaviour,cognition,personality,and mental health.
A neural,or brain organoid,describes an artificially grown,in vitro, tissue resembling parts of the human brain. Neural organoids are created by culturing pluripotent stem cells into a three-dimensional culture that can be maintained for years. The brain is an extremely complex system of heterogeneous tissues and consists of a diverse array of neurons and glial cells. This complexity has made studying the brain and understanding how it works a difficult task in neuroscience,especially when it comes to neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases. The purpose of creating an in vitro neurological model is to study these diseases in a more defined setting. This 3D model is free of many potential in vivo limitations. The varying physiology between human and other mammalian models limits the scope of animal studies in neurological disorders. Neural organoids contain several types of nerve cells and have anatomical features that recapitulate regions of the nervous system. Some neural organoids are most similar to neurons of the cortex. In some cases,the retina,spinal cord,thalamus and hippocampus. Other neural organoids are unguided and contain a diversity of neural and non-neural cells. 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. Similar techniques are used on stem cells used to grow cerebral organoids.
David S. Bredt is an American molecular neuroscientist.
Retinal vasculopathy with cerebral leukocencephalopathyand systemic manifestations is an inherited condition resulting from a frameshift mutation in the C-terminal region of the TREX1 gene.
Amita Sehgal is a molecular biologist and chronobiologist in the Department of Neuroscience at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Sehgal was involved in the discovery of Drosophila TIM and many other important components of the Drosophila clock mechanism. Sehgal also played a pivotal role in the development of Drosophila as a model for the study of sleep. Her research continues to be focused on understanding the genetic basis of sleep and also how circadian systems relate to other aspects of physiology.
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.
Han-chiao Isaac Chen is a neurosurgeon at the Presbyterian Medical Center of Philadelphia and the Veteran's Administration Medical Center. The Chen Laboratory works to "develop novel methods for restoring the function of the brain after it has been damaged by combining aspects of stem cell biology,neural tissue engineering,and neural interface technologies."
Sara R. Cherry is an American microbiologist who is John W. Eckman Professor of Medical Science and Professor of Microbiology in Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research involves genetic and mechanistic studies of virus–host interactions. During the COVID-19 pandemic,Cherry looked to identify novel therapeutic strategies.
Marisa Bartolomei is an American cell biologist,the Perelman Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology and Co-Director of the Epigenetics Institute at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research considers epigenetic processes including genomic imprinting. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
Chi Van Dang is a hematological oncologist and researcher,currently serving as the Scientific Director of Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. He is known for his research on genetics,the MYC gene and the cellular energy metabolism of cancer.
James H. Eberwine is an American molecular neurobiologist. He is the Elmer Holmes Bobst Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania.
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."