Proteostasis & Neuro-Psychiatric developmental Disorders 

Research Interests

We have long focused on elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying major human diseases from the perspectives of protein homeostasis networks and intracellular signaling pathways. Neuropsychiatric developmental disorders (NDD), particularly autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children, interested us like no other, as the afflicted individuals  manifest major common behavioral traits despite the enormous heterogeneity in the underlying etiology. This has thus intrigued us to investigate the molecular neurobiological basis of NDD. Along the way, we have established a comprehensive array of disease models, including patient-derived iPSCs (induced pluripotent stem cells), brain organoids, rodent and non-human primate models. With these models, we have learned and applied a set of multiple advanced techniques such as ex vivo brain slice electrophysiology, optogenetics, neuronal imaging, and in vivo electrophysiological recording, integrated with spatial multi-omics analyses, to systematically interrogate the mechanisms underlying NDDs at molecular, cellular, circuit, and behavioral levels. Previous work from our group has demonstrated that disruptions in retinoic acid signaling might contribute to distinct ASD subtypes in children.