Report Title: Cell-to-Cell Pathology Transfer in Parkinson’s disease

Reporter: JiaYi- Li, Ph.D.

Report time: October 15, 2018, 15:00

Location: Meeting Room, Institute of Neuroscience, Soochow University

Introduction：

In 1990, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has served as an associate professor at the University of Gothenburg (1999) and Lund University (2001, tenure). In 2011, he was a tenured professor at the Wallenberg Neuroscience Center at Lund University in Sweden. In 2013-2018, he served as Dean and Distinguished Professor of life and health sciences college of Northeastern University.

His research interests focus on the mechanism of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and Huntington's disease (HD) in cell and animal models, especially the mechanisms underlying neurological and synaptic dysfunction prior to nerve cell death; and stem cell therapy on nerves repair, transplantation strategy and safety evaluation of degenerative diseases. In 2008, he first discovered a new mechanism for the spread of PD-causing protein a synaptophysin (a-Syn) between cells, which is caused great repercussions and attention in neurodegenerative diseases. He further reveals the molecular mechanism of a-Syn transmission between cells and long-distance transmission. These findings suggest a-Syn as potential target for therapeutic intervention from a new perspective.

Related research has been published on international journals such as Nat Med (2008), J Clin Invest (2011), Nat Rev Neurosci (2008), Mov Disord (2010), Acta Neuropath (2014), and PNAS (2016). He has published more than 100 academic papers, and the paper has been cited more than 7,700 times, h-index 42, of which five years (from 2013) h-index 33. He obtained the grant “the key projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China”.