Research
Mouse molecular genetics are used to study the pathogenesis and develop treatment for neurodegenerative diseases
Appointments
- Professor, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
Biography
Yang is interested in using the mouse genetic approach to study the pathogenesis and to identify potential therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative diseases, particularly for Huntington’s Disease (HD) and Parkinson’s Disease (PD).
Yang and his colleagues focus on the following projects:
- in order to understand how mutant Huntington acts to result in a wide variety of clinical symptoms ranging from psychiatric, cognitive to motor deficits, they generate and analyze brain regional-specific models of HD in mice
- they take advantage of the high-speed BAC transgenic system to systematically test candidate dominant genetic modifiers of HD in mice.
- they use BAC transgenesis to introduce known PD mutations into mice to develop mouse models for Parkinson’s Disease
Publications
- Lin, CY, Wang, Y, Wu, TZ, Chao, R, Zou, ZB, Li, LS et al.. Chemical constituents and ferroptosis inhibitory activity of the deep-sea-derived fungus Penicillium citrinum W24. Nat Prod Res. 2026; :1-6. doi: 10.1080/14786419.2026.2669680. PubMed PMID:42096287 .
- Xu, ZH, Zou, ZB, Wang, CX, Li, C, Yang, XW, Wang, JS et al.. Anti-Neuroinflammatory Naphtho-γ-Pyrones from a Deep-Sea-Derived Fungus Aspergillus niger 3A00562. Mar Drugs. 2026;24 (4):. doi: 10.3390/md24040125. PubMed PMID:42042200 PubMed Central PMC13117293.
- Qiu, YF, Zhou, Y, Chen, C, Huang, J, Yang, XW. Prenylated acylphloroglucinols from the fruits of Hypericum patulum. Nat Prod Bioprospect. 2026;16 (1):. doi: 10.1007/s13659-026-00629-9. PubMed PMID:42020892 PubMed Central PMC13103025.
- Wu, B, Simmons, SK, Kim, S, Li, J, Akram, MA, Park, CS et al.. Concordant transcriptional and morphological remodeling revealed by in vivo Perturb-CLEAR. bioRxiv. 2026; :. doi: 10.64898/2026.04.06.716787. PubMed PMID:41993505 PubMed Central PMC13081986.
- Yang, Q, Ma, XT, Wang, TF, Dou, X, Zhao, M, Yang, XW et al.. DrugAgent: A multi-agent digital biosensor framework for interpretable virtual drug screening. J Mol Graph Model. 2026;146 :109396. doi: 10.1016/j.jmgm.2026.109396. PubMed PMID:41950794 .