News

Marc's paper demonstrating that GPNMB can be secreted from microglia, with non-cell-autonomous effects on neurons, and that anti-GPNMB antibodies can block the development of aSyn pathology in a fibril-seeding model of Parkinson's disease is published in Neuron! You can also read a press release about the paper.

Our senior undergraduate Randy's poster wins the Steven J. Fluharty Award, given to the student with the most outstanding poster presentation at the Neuroscience Student Research Symposium. He will be presented this award at the Neuroscience Graduation Awards Reception in May.

Alice is appointed to the inaugural Federal Advisory Council on Parkinson's Research, Care, and Services, charged with providing input on the National Plan to End Parkinson's Disease. The lab's response: Let's GO!

George, Rebecca, and Alice publish their paper demonstrating, surprisingly, that alpha-synuclein strains may be found in the blood, where they distinguish PD from DLB. You can read an article about the paper. Alice, Allie, Eddie Lee, and colleagues organize a Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research reunion in honor of Alice's incomparable postdoctoral mentor Virginia Lee.

Randy and Charles represent the lab at the CURF (undergraduate research) research day at Penn.

George's son Gabriel is born!

We wish Eliza and Carrie well as they leave the lab to pursue MD and PhD studies, respectively, both at Mount Sinai in NYC.

Masen and Cooper pass their prelims with flying colors! Hanwen publishes her paper nominating CAMLG as a lysosomal gene/protein with important effects in Parkinson's disease.

We use our cash prize from the Doris Duke Foundation Award to go on a lab retreat to New Orleans, where we update our lab handbook, eat great food, stay up way too late, and don't break any ankles.

Our team at Penn is awarded a program project grant to study mechanisms underlying different disease trajectories in the synucleinopathies. This is a big 5-year program with projects led by David Irwin, Virginia Lee, Kelvin Luk, and Alice. Alice's project focuses on assigning target genes to risk loci, linking biomarkers causally to clinical sequelae, and investigating the leads from these genetic and biomarker studies in iPSC-derived neurons and microglia.

George starts a faculty job as Assistant Professor of Neurology at Penn, with his primary appointment in the VA. Congratulations, George!!!

Eliza publishes her paper on GPNMB biomarker levels in GBA+ and GBA− PD.

Tom and Alice publish their paper describing the Molecular Integration in Neurological Disease (MIND) Initiative. Altogether, we managed to recruit nearly 1700 PD patients into a research cohort, identifying 159 with GBA1 variants and 44 with LRRK2 variants.

Masen, Kathi, and Cooper join the lab! Wow wow! Also, we are now doing (a little) drug discovery!! Funded by SPARK-NS, we are trying to see if we can translate our discovery that cells need GPNMB to take up alpha-synuclein fibrils into a way to stop the progression of Parkinson's disease. Kurt Brunden and Kelvin Luk, who know a lot more about drug discovery than Alice, are on the team helping us.

Alice learns that the R01 renewal she submitted was awarded as an NINDS Javits Award.

Alice wins the Doris Duke Foundation Paragon Award. She promptly drops the crystal trophy on the ground in New York City. However, she is cheeky enough to request, and the foundation is prepared enough to provide, a replacement trophy.

Alice and Marc collaborate with Dan Weintraub to review the topic of why people with alpha-synucleinopathies vary so greatly in their clinical cognitive presentation. You can read their thoughts here.

Sambit joins the lab. Welcome, Sambit!

Two new papers from the lab: one from Maria and Yunji demonstrating that GPNMB is the target gene of a PD GWAS signal and that it is both necessary and sufficient for cells to take up alpha-synuclein fibrils, and one from Junchao screening for biomarkers predicting cognitive decline in PD.

Lab retreat to Puerto Rico! Lots of excitement (including one broken ankle 😱), which we survived, emerging with a draft lab handbook.

Marc joins the lab and almost immediately passes his prelim. Congratulations, Marc!!

Sromona joins the lab. Welcome, Sromona!!

Alice is promoted to full professor. She learns this when she turns her phone on after getting off a plane!

Fei's paper demonstrating that TMEM106B genotypes associate with the degree of TDP-43 pathology in ALS brain and that TMEM106B knockdown increases TDP-43 aggregate formation in cells is published in Acta Neuropathologica. You can read the paper here. What is amazing is that Fei did this work as a one-year Visiting Scholar, with 9 months of that year during COVID-19 lockdown.

Adama joins the lab. Welcome, Adama! Yunji wins the Neysa Cristol Adams Award for her research at her graduation. Congrats to Yunji!

Roseanne passes her prelim. Congratulations, Roseanne!

A three-lab collaboration (with the labs of Kelvin Luk and Dejian Ren, whom Alice refers to as Master of the Lysosome) culminates in a Nature paper describing the cell biological, animal model, and human genetics dissection of TMEM175, a risk factor for PD. You can read the paper and the Penn coverage. Alice is hopeful that TMEM175 can be a new target for therapeutic development, which seems to be happening already.

Our first paper describing the MIND Initiative is published. You can read about our efforts to enroll and molecularly characterize our entire PD clinical population here. Spoiler alert: PD patients enthusiastically want to enroll and almost all of them want to know their own genetic status. Congrats to Tom, who led the paper, and Noah, whose reassuring presence is definitely a big factor in why MIND's enrollment rate is >95%!

David and Tom's paper predicting which Lewy Body Disorder patients will have Alzheimer's Disease pathology at autopsy is published — introducing the ADNC Risk Score. Alzforum covered it here.

Roseanne joins the lab. Welcome!

Our lab puts three undergrads through "R Bootcamp" as part of the American Physician Scientists Association Virtual Summer Research Program. Welcome to Evan, Maurice, and Chibby!

Maria passes her Bioengineering dissertation proposal! Good job, Maria! Also, Junchao and Alice help Alice's brother Royce Chen understand the impact of COVID-19 on NYC resident physicians — the paper is here.

Our 10-year Lab-iversary. We sadly realize that we cannot have a lab retreat in the middle of COVID and have a Zoom dinner instead. You can watch the nostalgic video here. Congratulations to the winner of Guess Whose Baby — Defne Amado! (First runner-up Travis Unger also did a good job.)