Yin Shen, PhD

Deciphering the Genetic Basis of Alzheimer's Disease by Novel Functional Genomic Approaches

Current treatments for Alzheimer’s disease focus only on alleviating its symptoms. Dr. Shen hopes to help find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease by identifying its genetic mechanisms utilizing novel functional genomic approaches.

Genetic studies revealed that the vast majority of genetic variations associated with complex diseases, including AD, don’t code for protein, therefore it has been difficult to interpret the functions of these genetic variations. Many of these variants are within non-coding regulatory regions. Regulatory regions are essential for the fine-tuning of gene expression and consequently genetic lesions in the regulatory regions can increase individual’s risk of developing AD by altering gene expression. To test this hypothesis, Dr. Shen will use novel functional genomic approaches to identify causal genetic variation that affect the functions of regulatory regions. The results from this work may identify variants can be used as biomarkers of AD risk and novel genes that are regulated by those variation can lead to the identification of new pathways that can be targeted for developing novel AD treatments.