Li Fan, PhD

Li Fan received his PhD in Developmental Neuroscience supervised by Dr. Shanting Zhao in School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China. His thesis showed that Reelin induces branching of neurons and radial glia cells in cerebral cortex and regulates cortical neuron migration by mediating the cofilin pathway. 

He then worked with Dr. Qiang Wu at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and defined a molecular Protocadherin alpha/WAVE/Pyk2/Rac1 axis that regulates neuronal migration and cytoskeletal dynamics before moving to New York in 2015. At Sloan Kettering Institute, he undertook his postdoctoral training in Dr. Zhirong Bao’s lab focusing on worm developmental neurobiology and got trained in genetics and microscopy as well as imaging processing. 

In Dr. Li Gan’s lab at Weill Cornell, he is working on Tau pathology and the role of microglia underlying Alzheimer’s disease using human iPSC cells and AD mouse models.

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Research Interests: Using genomic studies to reveal transcriptional changes associated with neurodegeneration

Hobbies: Running in Central Park