Research Areas
1) Uncovering Novel Roles of Glycans in the Brain
How do glycans regulate brain health and function?
Our lab is focused on uncovering the often overlooked but essential roles of glycans, complex sugar structures, within the brain. Our previous work revealed that vascular glycans are key regulators of blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity and brain function, revealing an underappreciated layer of control in how the brain operates.
Building on these insights, we are working to dissect how glycans preserve vascular health, orchestrate neuroimmune interactions, and modulate neuronal function, providing a deeper mechanistic undertanding of brain biology.
2) Modulating Glycans to Improve Brain Health
Can we target glycans therapeutically for aging and CNS disease?
With aging and disease, glycans in the brain become altered in structure, composition, and function. These changes are not merely consequences of disease but can be active drivers of impaired brain function. Our prior work demonstrated that restoring vascular glycans in aged mice not only improves BBB function, but also reduces neuroinflammation and improves memory and learning, demonstrating immense therapeutic promise in targeting these molecules.
We are now investigating new strategies to utilize and modulate brain glycosylation as a therapeutic lever to slow or reverse disease progression in Alzheimer's disease and other aging-associated diseases.
3) Decoding the Language of Glycans
How are glycan sequences regulated and deciphered?
Unlike DNA or proteins, glycans are not synthesized in a template-driven manner but instead arise from a dynamic interplay of enzymes, metabolic flux, and cell-environment interactions. They are complex in structure and highly context-dependent, and our understanding of how and why specific glycans are presented in the brain in different states is lacking.
Our lab integrates multi-omics, advanced imaging, mouse models, and functional assays to better understand the rules that govern glycan presentation on brain cells and determine how glycans can be used as biomarkers of brain state and disease.