HPAN Labs

HPAN Faculty

Each faculty member of the Hope Center Program on Protein Aggregation & Neurodegeneration (HPAN) has an active research program and/or collaboration to investigate the role of protein aggregation in neurodegenerative disease.  In addition, HPAN was chosen by the Dean to be a BioMed 21 Interdisciplinary Research Center, with an award of space in the new BJC Institute of Health and a financial commitment.

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  Beau Ances MD, PhD, MSc

  Associate Professor of Neurology

  Therapeutic Strategies for HIV Associated Neurocognitive Impairment Read More

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  Yuna Ayala, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, St. Louis University

  Role of RNA processing and TDP-43 function in neurodegeneration Read More

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  Randall Bateman, MD

  Charles F. and Joanne Knight Distinguished Professor of Neurology

  Alzheimer’s Disease: Pathophysiology, biomarkers, predictive diagnostics and treatments Read More

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  Jan Bieschke, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering

  Mechanisms and therapeutic strategies in age-related protein misfolding Read More

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  Kendall Blumer, PhD

  Professor of Cell Biology & Physiology

  Signal transduction in the cardiovascular, nervous and visual systems

  Read More

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  David Brody, MD, PhD

  Associate Professor of Neurology

  Translational research in traumatic brain injury Read More

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  Nigel Cairns, PhD, FRCPath

  Professor of Neurology

  Protein misfolding, inclusion formation and neurodegeneration in Frontotemperal Dementias Read More

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  Anil Cashikar, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Cell Biology & Physiology

  Multivesicular body and ESCRT functions in proteostasis Read More

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  Zhou-Feng Chen, PhD

  Professor of Anesthesiology

  Molecular and cellular mechanisms of itch sensation

  Read More

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  John Cirrito, PhD

  Associate Professor of Neurology

  Relationship between synaptic activity and amyloid-beta metabolism in Alzheimer’s disease Read More

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  Carlos Cruchaga, PhD

  Associate Professor of Psychiatry

  Second-generation sequencing technology to identify rare variants implicated in neurodegenerative diseases Read More

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  Adish Dani, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Pathology & Immunology

  High-resolution imaging of synaptic architecture and function Read More

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  Marc Diamond, MD

  Professor of Neurology & Neurotherapeutics, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas

  Therapeutic Mechanisms in Human Disease: Polyglutamine Disease Pathogensis and Protein Misfolding in Tauopathy Read More

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  Abhinav Diwan, MD

  Assistant Professor of Medicine

  Regulation of Lysosome function in Cellular Physiology and Pathology Read More

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  Anne Fagan, PhD

  Professor of Neurology

  Cerebrospinal fluid and plasma biomarkers of early stage Alzheimer’s Disease Read More

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  Carl Frieden, PhD

  Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics

  Protein folding, structure Read More

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  Alison Goate, DPhil

  Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

  Genetic and genomic approaches to uncovering susceptibility to neurological and psychiatric diseases Read More

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  Dennis Hallahan, MD

  Elizabeth H and James S McDonnell III Distinguished Professor of Medicine

  The mechanisms of cell death in normal tissues during cancer therapy Read More

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  Phyllis Hanson, MD, PhD

  Professor of Cell Biology & Physiology

  Protein-protein and protein-membrane interactions in neuronal membrane trafficking Read More

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  Tamara Hershey, PhD

  Professor of Psychiatry

  Clinical and cognitive neuroscience Read More

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  Didier Hodzic, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences

  Role of LINC complexes (Linkers of the Nucleoskeleton to the Cytoskeleton) in nucleokinesis and neuronal migration Read More

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  David Holtzman, MD

  Andrew B & Gretchen P Jones Professor of Neurology

  Cellular/Molecular/Biomarker studies of Alzheimer’s Disease and neonatal brain injury Read More

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  Sanjay Jain, MD, PhD

  Associate Professor of Medicine

  GFL-Ret mediated mechanisms in the development, repair and regeneration of the nervous and urogenital systems Read More

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  Celeste Karch, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

  Molecular mechanisms underlying tauopathies Read More

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  Paul Kotzbauer, MD, PhD

  Associate Professor of Neurology

  Mechanisms of neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease and related disorders Read More

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  Jin-Moo Lee, MD, PhD

  Professor of Neurology

  Understanding the molecular pathogenesis of spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage Read More

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  Mingjie Li, MD, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Neurology

  Developing viral vectors for applications in neuroscience Read More

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  David Limbrick, MD, PhD

  Associate Professor of Neurosurgery

  Neuronal membrane physiology, patch-clamp electrophysiology, CSF proteomics, hydrocephalus, neuroprosthetics, brain tumor biology Read More

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  Brendan Lucey, MD

  Assistant Professor of Neurology

  Understanding the relationship between sleep, the amyloid beta diurnal pattern, and Alzheimer’s disease Read More

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  Moe Mahjoub, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Medicine

  Mechanisms of cell-cell signaling in normal development and neurodegenerative disease Read More

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  Soe Soe Mar, MD

  Associate Professor of Neurology

  Pediatric multiple sclerosis and other white matter diseases, and pediatric migraine Read More

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  Steven Mennerick, PhD

  Professor of Psychiatry

  Physiology of glutamate and GABA neurotransmission in the CNS Read More

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  Timothy Miller, MD, PhD

  David Clayson Professor of Neurology

  New, effective, and safe treatments for neurodegenerative diseases Read More

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  Liviu Mirica, PhD

  Associate Professor of Chemistry

  Development of therapeutic and imaging chemical agents for Alzheimer’s disease; Design of specific inhibitors of histone demethylases Read More

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  John Morris, MD

  Harvey A & Dorismae Hacker Friedman Distinguished Professor of Neurology

  Establishing phenotypes for inherited forms of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias Read More

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  Erik Musiek, MD, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Neurology

  Aging, oxidative stress, and circadian clock genes in neurodegenerative diseases Read More

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  David Ornitz, MD, PhD

  Alumni Endowed Professor of Developmental Biology

  Neuronal development, regeneration, physiology Read More

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  Daniel Ory, MD

  Alan A and Edith L Wolff Distinguished Professor of Medicine

  Molecular basis of Niemann-Pick C disease and the regulation of NPC1 and NPC2 genes in cholesterol homeostasis Read More

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  Rohit Pappu, PhD

  Edwin H. Murty Professor of Engineering

  Mechanisms of aggregation and neurodegeneration in polyglutamine expansion disorders, specifically Huntington’s disease Read More

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  David Perlmutter, MD

  Professor of Pediatrics, Executive Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs and Dean

  Cellular mechanisms to clear misfolded proteins, and therapies to minimize toxicity by stimulating degradation of misfolded proteins Read More

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  Joel Perlmutter, MD

  Elliot Stein Professor of Neurology

  Pharmacology, physiology and pathophysiology of basal ganglia and movement disorders Read More

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  Richard Perrin, MD, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Pathology & Immunology

  Novel cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers for early diagnosis, prognosis, and staging of neurodegenerative diseases
  Read More

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  Alan Pestronk, MD

  Professor of Neurology

  Diagnosis, pathogenesis and treatment of immune, hereditary and degenerative neuromuscular disorders Read More

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  Steve Petersen, PhD

  James S McDonnell Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience

  Behavioral and fMRI studies of attention and cognitive development Read More

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  Marcus Raichle, MD

  Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Medicine

  Functional brain imaging with positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance Read More

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  Mark Sands, PhD

  Professor of Medicine

  Pathophysiology and novel therapies for lysosomal storage diseases Read More

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  Robert Schmidt, MD, PhD

  Professor of Pathology & Immunology

  Pathogenetic mechanisms of diabetic and age-related autonomic neuropathy Read More

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  Itender Singh, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery

  Neurovascular dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and stroke Read More

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  Joy Snider, MD, PhD

  Associate Professor of Neurology

  Mechanisms of protein degradation and intracellular calcium homeostasis in neurodegenerative disorders Read More

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  Heather True-Krob, PhD

  Associate Professor of Cell Biology & Physiology

  Protein misfolding and aggregation of prion proteins Read More

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  Fumihiko Urano, MD, PhD

  Samuel E Schechter Professor of Medicine

  Patient-based therapeutic development for Wolfram syndrome, the link between endoplasmic reticulum and neurodegeneration Read More

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  Andrei Vlassenko, MD, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Radiology

  Advanced neuroimaging techniques in aging and neurodegenerative disorders Read More

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  Yong Wang, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology

  Developing and applying MRI methods for quantification of pathological changes in neurodegeneration diseases Read More

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  Conrad (Chris) Weihl, MD, PhD

  Associate Professor of Neurology

  Protein degradation pathways and their relation to aging, muscle weakness and neurodegeneration Read More

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  David Wozniak, PhD

  Professor of Psychiatry

  Role of NMDA receptors in neuropathologic changes and cognitive decline Read More

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  Qin Yang, MD, PhD

  Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology

  Understand neural cell reprogramming/regeneration and generate “safe” neural cells for neurological disorder treatment Read More

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  Hiroko Yano, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery

  Molecular pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases; Epigenetic regulation of gene expression in Huntington’s disease Read More

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  Andrew Yoo, PhD

  Assistant Professor of Developmental Biology

  MicroRNA-mediated neuronal reprogramming and chromatin remodeling Read More

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  Gregory Zipfel, MD

  Professor of Neurosurgery

  Role of cerebral amyloid angiopathy on cerebral blood flow, cerebral ischemia, cerebral hemorrhage, and dementia; Pathophysiology and novel therapeutic approaches for aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage Read More