Yuan (Karen) Mei
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Cellular and Molecular Medicine
NIMH F32 Fellow
Summary
Karen earned her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience from MIT in 2016, where, under the supervision of Dr. Guoping Feng, she investigated the role of synaptic molecules in neurodevelopmental disorders using transgenic mouse models. Post-graduation, she delved into therapy development for neurodegenerative diseases at Alector LLC and Denali Therapeutics. There, she became fascinated with the potential of big data and machine learning in understanding synaptic disease mechanisms. Currently, as an NIMH F32 postdoctoral fellow, Karen is integrating machine learning with experimental techniques to map molecular networks at the synapse.
Education
Ph.D, Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, MIT 2016
B.A., Cognitive Neuroscience, Rice University 2010
Contact
yumei@ucsd.edu
Publications
Mei Y.*, Monteiro P.*, Zhou Y., Kim J., Gao X., Fu Z. Y., Feng G. Adult Restoration of Shank3 Rescues Selective Autistic-Like Phenotypes. Nature, 2016.
Mei Y., Zhang F. Molecular tools and approaches for optogenetics. Biological Psychiatry 12, 1033-1038 (2012).
Rosenthal B., Willsey H. R., Xu Y., Mei Y., et al. A convergent molecular network underlying autism and congenital heart disease. Cell Systems, 2021.
Andreone B. J., Przybyla L., Llapashtica C., Rana A., Davis S. S., van Lengrich B., Lin K., Shi J., Mei Y., et al. Alzherimer’s-associated PLCy is a signaling node required for both Trem2 function and the inflammatory response in human microglia. Nature Neuroscience, 2020.
Zhang Q., Gao X., Li C., Feliciano C., Wang D. Q., Mei Y., et al. Impaired dendritic development and memory in Sorbs2 knockout mouse model for intellectual disability.” Journal of Neuroscience, 2016.