News

Congratulations, Dr. Huang!! 🎉🎉🎉Gloria defended her thesis in style 💅 and left us with big shoes 👠 to fill!

January 9, 2024

Dr. Huang presented her work on cGAS-interferon signaling, capping off her last 5.5 years of hard work and contributions to science!

New Publication in Science: "Tlr7 drives sex differences in age- and Alzheimer's disease-related demyelination"

November 29, 2024
Congratulations Chloe and team!

See also the WCM newsroom article covering this significant finding.

Congratulations, Dr. Bangyan Liu!

October 18, 2024

Dr. Liu defended his thesis on markers of aging in neurodegeneration and senescence with flying colors! Best of luck on all your future endeavors, Bang!

Congratulations Celeste, Sarah, and Li on our recently published review article: "Cellular and pathological functions of tau" (Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol)

July 16, 2024

Congratulations Dr. Carling!!! Gillian defended her thesis on the combined effects of TREM2 and APOE4 on AD

July 18, 2024

Molecular Neurodegeneration paper accepted!

May 17, 2024

Congratulations to Celeste, Fan, Man Ying, Subhash, and Li on their new paper titled “Anti-acetylated-tau immunotherapy is neuroprotective in tauopathy and brain injury“! Read more here.

Congratulations Chloe! Dr. Lopez-Lee graduates AND is the Distinguished Student Commencement Speaker!

May 15, 2024

Congratulations Li on receiving the 2024 Jessica M. and Natan Bibliowicz Award for Excellence in Mentoring Women Faculty!

April 15, 2024

Congratulations Celeste on winning 2nd place in oral presentation at the 43rd Vincent Du Vigneaud Symposium!

April 10, 2024

Congratulations Wenhui on receiving the BrightFocus postdoctoral fellowship award in Alzheimer’s disease!

April 9, 2024

New Publication in Cell: “Human iPSC 4R tauopathy model uncovers modifiers of tau propagation”

April 5, 2024
Congratulations Celeste and Alice!

See also the WCM newsroom article covering this significant finding.

Congratulations Sadaf on being appointed Instructor in Neuroscience at WCM!!

March 11, 2024

Lab members attend ADPD 2024!

March 5-9, 2024

New Review in Neuron: “Mechanisms of sex differences in Alzheimer’s disease”

February 22, 2024
Congratulations Chloe, Eileen, and Gillian for this insightful review!

Congratulations, Dr. Chloe Lopez-Lee, for successfully defending her doctoral thesis!

December 7, 2023

Congratulations Sarah on being awarded a F32 from NIA to study cell type-specific mechanisms in APOE3 Christchurch!

November 17, 2023

Congratulations Chloe for winning the People’s Choice Award for best 3-Minute Thesis!

November 13, 2023

Lab members attend the annual Society for Neuroscience conference!

November 11-15, 2023

Another successful Appel Symposium

November 9, 2023

Congratulations Celeste and Chloe for winning Best Poster awards at the BMRI retreat!

October 5, 2023

New Publication in Cell: “The AD odyssey 2023: Tales of single cell”

September 28, 2023
Congratulations, Wenjie and Wenhui!

Congratulations Sadaf on being awarded an NIH K99/R00 to study antiviral immune responses in AD!

August 4, 2023

New Review in Nature Cell Biology: “Autophagy prevents microglial senescence”

June 12, 2023
Congratulations Sadaf and Bang on this significant review!

Gan Lab at the Keystone Symposium in Whistler, Canada 

May 16-20, 2023
In the Keystone Symposium 2023, Celeste, Gloria, Sadaf, and Wenjie presented their projects and had exciting scientific discussions with other scientists in the field. We also enjoyed the beautiful nature in Whistler! 

Akida Abulimit

Congratulations Akida on winning 3rd place at the NYU Masters students poster presentation!

April 27, 2023

Click to enlarge

New publication in Nature Neuroscience: “Tau activation of microglial cGAS–IFN reduces MEF2C-mediated cognitive resilience”

April 24, 2023
Our study revealed a striking contribution of cGAS-interferon-MEF2C network to tau-induced neurotoxicities in Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. We found that tau-activation of cGAS in AD diminishes cognitive resilience by decreasing the neuronal transcriptional network of MEF2C through type I interferon (IFN-I) signaling. The study was led by Dr. Sadaf Amin, Yige (Gloria) Huang, and Dr. Joe Udeochu in the Gan Laboratory, in collaboration with Appel Institute faculty Drs. Subhash Sinha and Wenjie Luo, in addition to Drs. Li Huei Tsai at the Picower Institute of Learning and Memory at MIT, Tara Tracy at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Rajiv Ratan at the Burke Neurological Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Sue-Ann Mok at the University of Alberta.

  • The authors found that in microglia, engulfed pathogenic tau enters mitochondria and triggers mtDNA release into the cytosol which activates IFN-I responses in a cGAS-dependent manner. Genetic ablation of cGAS in tauopathy mice diminished microglial IFN-I, preserved synapse integrity and plasticity and protected against cognitive impairment without affecting the pathogenic tau load. In neurons, this resilient phenotype was accompanied by a significant upregulation of transcriptional network of MEF2C- an AD cognitive resilience gene- in an IFN-dependent manner. cGAS ablation enhanced, while activation of IFN-I downregulated, neuronal MEF2C network. Furthermore, pharmacological inhibition of cGAS in tauopathy mice enhanced neuronal MEF2C network and restored synaptic integrity, plasticity, and memory. These data strongly support the therapeutic potential of targeting cGAS-IFN-MEF2C axis to improve resilience against AD-related pathological insults.

    Read the full paper →
    Read the WCM Newsroom press release →
    See our Twitter summary →

Congratulations Celeste for being awarded the Rita Levi Montalcini Scholarship! 

April 14, 2023

Congratulations Gillian on being awarded an F31 predoctoral fellowship from the NIH! 

August 19, 2022
Her research project is titled “Trem2-APOE Pathway in Alzheimer’s Disease: Exploring the differential effects of R47H on the APOE3 and APOE4 backgrounds in a tauopathy model.”

Congratulations to Daiyan Ahmed and Elena Ajayi, our 2022 Appel and BMRI Summer Scholars for a successful internship!

August 12, 2022 
Last year’s scholars and lab mentors from left to right: 
Daiyan Ahmed and Hao Chen (Luo Lab)
Jonathan Victor and Elena Ajayi (Victor Lab)