NeuroMolecular Medicine - Meet the Editors
Thiruma V. Arumugam
Thiruma V. Arumugam is a Professor in Physiology in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Microbiology, School of Life Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia (https://scholars.latrobe.edu.au/display/tarumugam (this opens in a new tab)).
Professor Arumugam completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Medical Science with Hons in 1998 at the University of Sydney and Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmacology in 2003 at the University of Queensland. He completed his post-doctoral training at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, USA in the research laboratory of Professor Neil Granger and at the National Institute of Health, Baltimore, USA in the laboratory of Professor Mark Mattson. He started his independent laboratory at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) in 2007, and moved to the School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of Queensland (UQ) as a Senior Lecturer, to continue his work researching CNS neurodegeneration and ischaemic stroke. He was awarded the highly competitive UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award in 2011. He also received the Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship in 2011. He was then appointed as an Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore in July 2013. Professor Arumugam joined La Trobe University in March 2020.
Professor Arumugam’s major research focuses on unravelling neuronal cell death mechanisms in stroke and vascular dementia. Dr. Arumugam’s research into novel targets for therapy has the very real prospect of both transforming the field, as well as providing an intellectual platform for new drug development.
Professor Arumugam has published over 160 articles extensively in diverse high-impact journals and three book chapters. Among these, articles were published in prestigious journals as first/corresponding/senior author such as Nature Medicine, Circulation, PNAS, Nature Communications, Annals Neurology, Cell Metabolism, Progress in Neurobiology, Cell Death & Disease, Neurobiology of Diseases, Ageing Research Reviews and Human Molecular Genetics. Professor Arumugam has over 13,000 (Google Scholar) career citations. His h-index is 63 (https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=cM-o7FwAAAAJ&hl=en (this opens in a new tab)).
Mark P. Mattson, PhD
Mark Mattson is Chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging, and a Professor of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. His research is aimed at understanding molecular and cellular mechanisms of brain aging and the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases, and stroke. His work has elucidated how the brain responds adaptively to challenges such as fasting and exercise, and he has used that information to develop novel interventions to promote optimal brain function throughout life. Dr. Mattson is among the most highly cited neuroscientists in the world with an ‘h’ index of over 190. He has received many awards including the Metropolitan Life Foundation Medical Research Award, the Alzheimer’s Association Zenith Award and the Santiago Grisolia Chair Prize, and he is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Kah-Leong Lim
Kah-Leong Lim obtained his Ph.D. from the Singapore Institute of Molecular & Cell Biology in 1999. Thereafter, he did his postdoctoral training firstly at the Department of Pathology in Harvard Medical School (2000-2001), and subsequently at the Department of Neurology in Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (2001-2002). Dr. Lim is currently a Professor and the Vice Dean (Research) at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was previously the Chair of the Department of Physiology at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore. His research work focuses on unraveling the molecular basis of neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Lim has published more than 100 papers with over 17,000 career citations to date. He has won numerous scientific awards including the Singapore President’s Science Award and Singapore Neuroscience Association Distinguished Neuroscientist Award.
Dr. Dong-Gyu Jo
Dr. Dong-Gyu Jo is a Professor of the School of Pharmacy at Sungkyunkwan University, Korea. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Neurobiology from the Gwangju Institute of Science & Technology (GIST) in 2002. From 2003 to 2007 he worked at National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health in USA as a Postdoctoral fellow.
His research interests span the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying brain aging and age-related neurodegenerative diseases. He is also running drug discovery projects spanning the range from target validation and initial high-throughput screening to lead identification to advance the discovery of efficacious therapies or prevention of age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease.
Raghu Vemuganti, PhD
Raghu Vemuganti, PhD., is a Professor and Vice Chair for Basic Research at the Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA. Raghu was trained at University of Hyderabad, University of Montreal and University of Wisconsin. Raghu’s lab is supported by several grants from NIH, VA and the American Heart Association. Raghu serves on many NIH and other study sections and on several journal editorial boards including “Stroke”. He is an Associate Editor of “Neurochemistry International”. Raghu serves as a Director on the Board of International Society for Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism and as a Program Committee member for the International Stroke Conference. Raghu’s major research interest is to understand the interaction of noncoding RNAs (microRNAs, lncRNAs and circular RNAs) and epigenetics in modulating post-stroke brain damage (Mehta S et al., Journal of Neuroscience 2015, 35:16443-16449; Kim T et al., Journal of Neuroscience 2016, 36:7055-5065). Raghu published over 140 peer reviewed papers (7,083 citations; h-index: 48; i10-index: 96; https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iOtDyCIAAAAJ & hl=en & oi=ao (this opens in a new tab)
Raghu chaired sessions and served on the meeting committees on more than 40 occasions and has given more than 50 invited lectures at various International meetings and other Universities. In the past 15 years, Raghu mentored more than 55 post-docs, fellows, graduate and undergraduate students. Raghu teaches a graduate level course entitled “Molecular Mechanisms of Brain Damage” at the UW Neuroscience Program. Raghu captained the Mid-West League Winning Team that Competed at the 2014 US Tennis Association’s National Championships. Raghu also serves as a Director on the Board of Greater Madison Tennis Association.
Dr. Eitan Okun
Eitan Okun is an Associate Professor in the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar Ilan University, and is affiliated with the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center. Prof. Okun’s research is conducted at the Paul Feder Laboratory for research on Alzheimer’s disease. Prof. Okun’s major research lines focus on both basic and translational neurosciences. Prof. Okun studies the roles of innate immune receptors of the Toll-like receptors / Interleukin-1 pathways on spatial learning and memory in rodents, with emphasis on spatial pattern completion and pattern separation. In addition, Prof. Okun’s laboratory studies mechanisms by which physical exercise affects adult hippocampal neurogenesis, the process of formation of new neurons in the adult brain. On the translation branch of his research, Prof. Okun develops DNA vaccination strategies to delay the progression of Alzheimer's disease using mouse models of Alzheimer's disease and Down syndrome. In addition, the laboratory also develops biomarkers for earlier diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Mathias Gelderblom
Mathias Gelderblom obtained his M.D. from the Universitaet Kiel, School of Medicine, Kiel, Germany. As a graduate student he was trained in the laboratory of Professor Steven Waxman, Center for Neuroscience and Regeneration Research, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA. Dr. Gelderblom then started his residency in Neurology at the University Hospital Hamburg Eppendorf, Department of Neurology, Hamburg, Germany. Mathias Gelderblom is currently employed as Clinician Scientist and Clinical Attending at the Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. Dr. Gelderblom´s major research interest is to understand the role of the immune system in short- and long-term post-stroke brain damage. His main focus it the role of the innate immune system for the development of the sterile neuroinflammatory reaction following stroke.
John S. Kuo, MD PhD
John S. Kuo, MD, PhD is the Vice President of China Medical University in Taichung City, Taiwan. He also serves as Chair Professor, Director of the Neuroscience and Brain Disease Center, and was selected as a Yu Shan Scholar by Taiwan's Ministry of Education.
He previously served as the Inaugural Chair and established the Dept. of Neurosurgery at Dell Medical School of The University of Texas at Austin. He also served as a tenured Professor of Neurosurgery and Oncology at UT-Austin and continues as a UT Professor after moving to Taiwan. Prior to Texas, Dr. Kuo was a tenured Professor of Neurosurgery and Human Oncology, Director of the Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program, and Chair of the Carbone Cancer Center CNS Tumors Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr Kuo graduated from Harvard College with summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors, then earned both MD and PhD degrees from Harvard Medical School (Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology) and MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research with an NIH-funded MSTP fellowship. Dr Kuo trained in clinical neurosurgery at University of Southern California and completed an American Brain Tumor Association postdoctoral fellowship at University of Toronto’s Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre. He is a board-certified neurosurgeon specializing in surgery for benign and malignant brain tumors and directs a translational research lab studying cancer stem cell biology to develop novel therapies and improve patient outcomes. In addition, he led and collaborated on multi-institutional clinical trials of new brain tumor therapies. His research has been funded by multiple NIH, NSF, foundation and industry grants. Dr Kuo’s research on novel cancer-targeting agents with diagnostic, fluorescent and therapeutic applications was featured on the covers of Science Translational Medicine and Neurosurgery. His many honors and awards include MOE Yu Shan Scholar, AANS/CNS Preuss award, Headrush Brain Tumor Research Professorship, Yeoh Ghim Seng Visiting Professorship in Surgery of the National University of Singapore, Loff Memorial Fund for GBM research. He was elected to the American Academy of Neurological Surgeons, Society of University Surgeons and American College of Surgeons, and won NREF Young Clinician Investigator, Sigma Xi and multiple teaching awards from Harvard, MIT, UW-Madison and UT-Austin. He is past Chair of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons Membership committee and serves on the Congress of Neurological Surgeons Education Division and the AANS/CNS Joint Tumor Section Executive Committee. Dr Kuo serves on the editorial boards of Neuro-Molecular Medicine, Scientific Reports, Frontiers in Neuro-Oncology, Operative Neurosurgery, World Neurosurgery and co-founded CNS Neurosurgery Watch.