Joseph Park, Ph.D.

My research aims at providing scientific solutions to the latest issues in the neurodegenerative disorder, particularly in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). AD is the leading cause of age-related neurodegenerative disease affecting over 5.2 million people in the United States. While our knowledge underlying the AD pathogenic mechanism has greatly improved, no cure is available. Recent failures of anti-β-amyloid therapies in humans, which were highly effective in mouse models, might be explained the problematic issue on translating data from animals to human. Therefore, there is a pressing need to develop artificial human AD brain model to study and intervene molecular mechanisms for the drug development.

My research is focused on (1) the development of in vitro human AD brain on a chip including iPSC-derived microglia, (2) proteomic/RNAseq profiling for the identification molecular pathway triggered by excess amyloid- beta in 3D AD triculture model (neuron/astrocyte/microglia). The aim is to constructively introduce a specific targeted brain area and enhance the physiologically relevant brain environment that conventional approaches cannot achieve.