The Immune network of the central nervous system
Le Zhang's lab focuses on the immune responses of the central nervous system in neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder, and multiple sclerosis, using cutting-edge single-cell technologies. Mainly, they are interested in understanding the immune network in the central nervous system and its role in human cognition and neurological disorders. An important element of their research is the integration of complementary approaches that combine single-cell analyses of postmortem human brain specimens using single nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) and immune enrichment snRNA-seq, comparative genomic and cellular analyses of human neurological disorders to identify disease- and cell-type-specific features of neuroinflammation, and genetic and molecular analyses of human neurodegenerative diseases.
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Biography
Le Zhang obtained her BS in Biological Science from Peking University in 2004 and her PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Hong Kong in 2010, where she studied epigenetic regulation in aging and senescence. Zhang continued her training in epigenetics as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in the field of neuroscience and as a research fellow at Harvard Medical School in the area of development. After a short journey at Pfizer in the R&D of neuroscience, Zhang joined Yale School of Medicine in 2018, leading single-cell research in neurological disorders, and started her current position as Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience in 2020.