MAILMAN RESEARCH CENTER
Laboratory of Molecular and Developmental Neurobiology
Dona Lee Wong, Ph.D. |
The research of the Laboratory of Molecular and Developmental Neurobiology focuses on understanding how hormonal and neural control of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA or stress axis) regulates the expression of the genes involved in catecholamine biosynthesis. The receptors activated, and the signaling mechanisms and transcription factors they in turn stimulate to alter gene expression, are being investigated. The goal is to determine how dysfunction of the stress axis can lead to abnormal expression of the catecholamine enzymes and hence, the catecholamines, and the consequences for stress and psychiatric disorders.
The hypothesis forming the basis for our investigations is that abnormal gene expression, rather than abnormalities in the neural genes themselves, underlies the pathophysiology of psychiatric illness. Visit the lab's official site for more information.
Official Website
This lab has its own website here.
Personnel
- Dona Lee Wong, Ph.D., Director, Laboratory of Molecular and Developmental Neurobiology and Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School (e-mail)
- Linda Don, Administrative Secretary (e-mail)
- T.C. Tai, Ph.D., Instructor, Harvard Medical School (e-mail)
- Jun-Mei Yao, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School (e-mail)
- Jixin Ding, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School
- Robert Claycomb, Research Assistant (e-mail)
- David Wong-Faull, Laboratory Assistant