Kang Shen

Creating a center for neurodegeneration research focusing on brain maintenance and regeneration, and the role of the immune system in these processes.

The goal is to forge an inter-disciplinary collaboration between physicists, biologists, chemists, and translational medical scientists by inventing new ways of visualizing the brain, from individual molecules to neuronal circuits to entire brain regions, from a normally functioning neuron to a diseased brain.

We understand a lot about how the brain gets rewired when learning a new skill by repetitive practice, such as hitting a curveball. However, how learning and experience alter the innate behaviors that we are born with is poorly understood.