Alan Mejia Maza, MSc PhD

Dr. Alan Mejia-Maza is an instructor in Neurology working in Dr. Vanessa Wheeler´s laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Maza has received the K99/R00 (NINDS) NIH Pathway to Independence Award to pursue research in repeat expansion diseases (REDs). His research focuses on understanding the instability of the XDP hexameric repeat. Specifically, Dr. Mejia-Maza uses a range of genetic, molecular and bioinformatic analyses in patient samples and in patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) and neuronal models to identify factors that modify hexameric repeat instability in XDP.

Dr. Mejia-Maza obtained his PhD in Neuroscience from the Queen Square Institute of Neurology at University College London (UCL), under the supervision of Prof. Elizabeth Fisher. His work at UCL focused on mouse models of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis with special emphasis on neuromuscular junctions.