Faculty
Stella Alimperti: Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. The Alimperti lab is focused on identifying the factors controlling the development, maintenance, and loss of function, and repair/regeneration of tissues by developing novel tissue engineering and regenerative strategies based on cellular engineering technology, materials science, molecular biology methods, micro-and nanofabrication, and additive manufacturing.
Tina Brelidze: Mechanisms of ion channel regulation. The Brelidze lab investigates mechanisms of ion channel regulation and their physiological functions, including the link between ion channel function and aging, using a combination of electrophysiology, molecular dynamics simulations, biophysical and structural methods, and animal models.
Casey Brown: Emotional and Social Aspects of Aging and Neurodegenerative Disorders. The Clinical Aging and Relational Emotion Science Laboratory (CARES Lab) investigates social and emotional impairments resulting from neurodegeneration and their interpersonal effects on caregivers’ mental and physical health.
Mark Burns: Traumatic brain injury. The Burns lab investigates how traumatic brain injury (TBI), particularly repetitive mild TBI, causes dementia and neurodegeneration, including how factors such as aging and APOE status interact with TBI to exacerbate amyloid/tau pathology, blood-brain barrier repair, and sleep.
Isaac Cervantes: Learning, memory and forgetting. The Cervantes’ lab is trying to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of active forgetting and how they are affected by aging.
Amrita K Cheema: Cancer and aging. The Cheema lab. focuses on studying the role of extracellular vesicles in mediating the etiology and onset of pancreatic cancer and investigating how aging exacerbates tumorigenesis.
Kathy Conant: Brain debris clearance and neuronal remodeling with aging. The Conant lab examines monoamine reuptake inhibitors’ effects on cognitive reserve in animal models, identifying mechanistic connections between depression and neurodegeneration.
Rhonda Dzakpasu: In vitro models of neural networks. The Dzakpasu lab investigates network-wide in vitro neuronal activity and synchronization parameters using a microelectrode array system in co-cultures of hippocampal neurons with genetically modified astrocytes to determine aging-related patterns.
Rebekah Evans: Degeneration of cells and circuits in Parkinson’s disease. The Evans lab uses slice electrophysiology and two-photon calcium imaging with optogenetics in mice to understand how the most vulnerable cell types connect with each other to influence neural activity, neurodegeneration, and motor output.
Patrick Forcelli: Neural circuitry underlying seizure. The Forcelli lab examines the propagation, complex behaviors, and treatment of seizures in perinatal and adult animal models using a combination of lesions, and focal pharmacological, electrical, and state-of-the-art pharmacogenetic and optogenetic methods.
Rhonda Friedman: Language impairment in Primary Progressive Aphasia. The Friedman lab tests experimental treatment protocols for persons with acquired language disorders from stroke, head injury, or dementia.
Priscilla Furth: Cancer genetics, prevention and survivorship. The Furth lab examines the Impact of aging on the progression and prevention of mammary preneoplasia and cancer, using mouse models of cell-targeted Estrogen Receptor alpha and Aromatase (CYP19A1A) expression.
Nady Golestaneh: Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). The Golestaneh lab is defining the underlying mechanism of AMD using adult stem cells, establishing new animal models of AMD for drug development, testing novel drugs in vivo, and investigating how aging can induce retinal degeneration
Brent Harris: Pathological characteristics of neurodegenerative disease. The Harris lab focuses on the role of glia in the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative diseases, including proliferation and senescence of astrocytes in culture, animal models of disease, and human tissues (with a particular focus on ALS).
Pam Herd: Public policy and aging. Dr. Herd’s research focuses on inequality and how it intersects with health, aging, and policy, using survey research and biodemographic methods
Jeff Huang: Glia-neuron interactions in myelination. The Huang lab focuses on mechanisms of oligodendrocyte regulation and myelin regeneration, and its relevance to neuroinflammatory disorders of aging, examining effects of CNS development, homeostasis, and regeneration.
Xiong Jiang: Functional brain imaging as biomarkers for neurodegeneration. Research in the Jiang lab focuses on developing advanced MRI techniques to detect and quantify neural injury at early stages of neurodegenerative diseases, including in HIV-infected older adults and in AD.
Ken Kellar: Nicotine treatment for cognitive impairment in AD. The Kellar lab examines the pharmacology and regulation of nicotinic cholinergic receptors and the neurotransmission pathways stimulating the release of norepinephrine, dopamine, and acetylcholine.
Moshe Levi: Molecular processes of liver and renal disease. The Levi lab examines the roles of the nuclear receptor FXR, G protein-coupled receptors, and mitochondrial sirtuins in kidney disease in diet-induced obesity, diabetes, and aging.
Kathy Maguire-Zeiss: Glial activation in neurodegeneration. The Maguire-Zeiss laboratory studies molecular mechanisms involved in neurodegenerative disorders with an emphasis on immune responses in the brain. Research focuses on brain disorders that are typified by protein misfolding and inflammation.
Jeanne Mandelblatt: Cancer screening and survivorship at the intersection of aging. The research uses population-based research findings to drive basic discovery about cancer and aging, thus informing the next generation of clinically relevant population research studies.
Italo Mocchetti: Cross-talk of HIV and AD neuropathogenesis. The Mocchetti lab investigates commonalities between HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders, aging, and neurodegenerative diseases in the loss of synaptic connectivity, with a focus on neurotrophic factors.
Charlie Moussa: Clinical therapeutics to promote autophagy in proteinopathies. The Moussa lab evaluates potential therapeutic drugs for neurodegenerative diseases in pre-clinical models and current clinical trials, including cellular, biochemical, and pathological mechanisms that underlie neurodegeneration.
Alexey Ostroumov: Synaptic and neural circuit disruption in neurologic disorders. The Ostroumov lab applies a multi-disciplinary approach, combining electrophysiological and pharmacological techniques with rodent behavior and state-of-the-art molecular and optogenetic tools.
Dan Pak: APP processing and dendritic spine plasticity. The Pak lab examines the normal physiological roles of AD-related genes related to synaptic function and plasticity and how these pathways are regulated during aging and pathogenesis.
G. William Rebeck: APOE and AD. The Rebeck lab focuses on the effects of APOE genotype in cognitive impairment with aging. Recent work has focused on cognitive impairment induced by chemotherapy and metabolic disturbances.
Kathryn Sandberg: Sex Differences in health, aging and disease. The Sandberg lab identifies mechanisms underlying the pathological consequences of blood pressure dysregulation in hypertension, renal disease, anorexia nervosa, aging in cognitive impairment, and dementia.
Scott Turner: Biomarkers and clinical trials in AD and HIV-related dementias. The Memory Disorders Program works on the development and validation of novel biomarkers for prodromal AD, MCI, and AD; drug discovery for the treatment and prevention of MCI and AD; and interaction of geriatric HIV with AD.
Peter Turkeltaub: Stroke in language and cognition. The Turkeltaub lab defines the brain’s organization for language and other cognitive faculties, how this organization changes in the context of developmental or aging-related disorders, and mechanisms to enhance recovery.
Michael Ullman: Language and memory in aging and neurodegeneration. The Ullman lab studies how the declarative/procedural model of language and other cognitive abilities are affected in the aging brain.
Stefano Vicini: Hippocampal balance of excitatory and inhibitory processes. The Vicini lab focuses on hippocampal network activities using electrophysiological, anatomical, and pharmacological techniques, examining synaptic plasticity based on post-synaptic receptors during development and aging.
TingTing Wang: Molecular mechanisms of homeostatic plasticity. Using the model of Drosophila melanogaster, the Wang lab identifies pathways that underlie the homeostatic control of the nervous system and studies how it is impaired in neurological, neuropsychiatric, and neurodegenerative disorders.