Dr Wei ChenAssociate Professor, Department of Pathology, The University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
Biography
I have supervised five postdoctoral fellows and two doctoral students in my lab at Dr. Yi-Ping Li?s Lab in Forsyth Institute and Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and five postdoctoral fellows and twelve graduate students and undergraduate students in my lab, the University of Alabama at Birmingham. I mentored Dr. Shuying Yang as my Postdoc who has recently been appointed as a tenured Associated Professor in Dental School at The University of Pennsylvania. In addition, I have mentored Visiting Scholars and Visiting Scientists, as well as high school students. Furthermore, I designed experiments and participated in the technical aspects of all experiments to ensure their successful completion. I also supervised the day-to-day activities of postdoctoral fellows and Ph.D. students and had primary responsibility for their projects. During 2000 to 2004, I was invited to be an Adjunct Professor (volunteer position) in the Biomedical Research Institute, Life Science College, Beijing Normal University, China and gave a one-week lecture and experiment training workshop in 2002 and 2003 in the Biomedical Research Institute, Life Science College, Beijing Normal University
Research Interest
My current research has investigated the pathogenesis of cleidocranial dysplasia, and characterizing the role of the RUNX/Cbf? complex in postnatal skeletogenesis. I have demonstrated that gene-based therapy approaches of recombinant AAV-mediated Atp6v0d2 RNA interference d2 knockdown prevents bone-loss and inflammation in periapical disease. In my future work, we will determine whether induction of G?13 can attenuate inflammation and bone loss in periodontitis, and define the mechanism by which G?13 regulates periodontitis pathogenesis through RhoA/AKT/IKK/NF-?B signaling. Further, we will determine the upstream G?13 signaling cascade in OCs by characterizing GPCRs coupled with G?13, and characterize the role of G?13 in RA.