Laboratory of Molecular Regeneration and Neuroimaging

I am a research scientist (equivalent to in-line Assistant Professor) at Nemours Biomedical Research Department in Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children. I also hold academic positions as a research assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Thomas Jefferson University Medical College and in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Delaware. 

I earned my M.M. (master in medicine) in Biochemistry department at the College of Medicine, Chung-Ang University at Seoul, South Korea and Ph.D in Neurobiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. 

My primary  goal in research is to elucidate the fundamental cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie the transport of axonal RNAs including mRNAs and non-coding RNAs and the regulation of local protein synthesis that are required for successful regeneration of injured axons.I plan to achieve this goal by examining two leading hypotheses in animal models of injury: 1) Axonally transported mRNAs encoding injury-response and growth-associated proteins contain region(s) that impart both the localization and translational regulation to these mRNAs via RNA-protein interaction; and 2) The specificity of intra-axonal protein synthesis is regulated by local molecular regulators such as small non-coding regulatory RNAs (sncRNAs). I have been publishing a series of paper regarding part of these works (please refer to my publications). The long-term goal in seeking the molecular mechanisms regulating intra-axonal protein synthesis is to develop new strategies to facilitate/promote restoration of neurophysiologic functions after the onset of various neurodegenerative and traumatic diseases to the CNS.