Lulu Jiang, M.D., Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor of Pharmacology
Research Interests
Dr. Jiang was a Postdoc Fellow in the Laboratory of Neurodegeneration mentored by Dr. Benjamin Wolozin. Her previous work demonstrated that propagated tau oligomers (but not tau fibrils) induce pathological changes in RNA metabolism and neurodegeneration. Upon that, Dr. Jiang developed an optogenetic system for controlling tau aggregation, which brought in a seminal discovery that tau oligomerization drives the accumulation of RNA binding protein HNRNPA2B1 and N6-methyladenosine modified transcripts in the aggregated tau complex.
Dr. Jiang has also lead on the generation of human 3D iPSC M/AstAD based models of AD for the exploration of molecular mechanism and drug screening. Her research interests include: 1) Protein-Protein and Protein-RNA interactions in AD and related dementia; 2) Molecular mechanism of Tau prion-like propagation in Braak stages of AD; 3) Neuron-glia interactions in pathogenesis of AD and PD; 4) iPSC-induced 3D brain organoid models of neurodegenerative diseases and precision medicine; 5) Development of novel therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases.