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Jenq-Lin Yang
Professor
Cellular and molecular neuroscience
DNA damage and repair
Astrocyte pathophysiology
Mechanisms of ischemic stroke
Brief Biography
Following graduation from the Department of Nutrition of Chung Shan Medical University in June 1990, I entered the Marine Corps for two-year mandatory military service. After discharged from military in September 1992, immediately, I joined Dr. Tai-Huang Huang’s laboratory at Institute of Biomedical Sciences of Academia Sinica as a research assistant working on molecular cloning, in vitro transcription, DNA and RNA isolation, and protein purification. My knowledge was broadened in structure biology during in Dr. Huang’s group. I received my graduate education, both master and doctoral, from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2006. My master was studying on differential regulation of haptoglobin promoter in differentiated and undifferentiated NIH3T3 fibroblasts. I switched gear to neurosciences working on apolipoprotein E4, a risk factor of Alzheimer’s disease, interacting and regulating β–amyloid production and plaque formation in Alzheimer’s mouse model during doctoral study. I acted as a research scientist to assist in supervising and training students and volunteers and troubleshooting for experiments at Dr. Andrew Martinez’s laboratory immediately after I finished the doctoral study. I moved to Maryland in late 2006 and joined the Laboratory of Neurosciences and concurrently the Laboratory of Molecular Gerontology at the National Institute on Aging, NIH as a post-doctoral researcher and was mentored by Dr. Mark P. Mattson and Dr. Vilhelm A. Bohr. I stepped into a new field of combining DNA repair and neurosciences studying mechanisms of DNA repair in aging neurons and neurodegenerative diseases. Following the post-doctoral training, I was recruited by Dr. Samuel H.H. Chan for a faculty position of Institute for Translational Research in Biomedical Sciences at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in August 2011.
My study focuses on various mechanisms of DNA repair as well as their repair efficiency in neurons and associated brain cells. My lab is working on the signaling pathways that involve in regulation of DNA repair proteins as well as cell survival. My goal is to understand the mechanisms of pathogenic factors producing DNA damage during aging, neural disorders, and ischemic stroke, and then, cope with DNA damage to increase neuronal survival via elevating DNA repair efficiency. Developing therapeutic methods for neurodegenerative disorders is the ultimate aim of our lab. Currently my lab is exploring the roles of astrocytes in protection, repair, and regeneration after cerebral ischemic stroke. My lab also tightly collaborates and assists physicians developing experiments and projects trying to connect bench work to clinical treatments in the fields of neurodegenerative disease and cerebral ischemic stroke.
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