Liang Ma, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer's & Neurodegenerative Diseases

Department of Pharmacology

Currently seeking M.S. & Ph.D. students

Neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. schizophrenia) and neurodegenerative disorders (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease) are highly heritable diseases. The long-term goal of his lab is to bridge neurogenetics and neurobiology by determining risk genes/transcripts across a range of human brain diseases, and investigate which and how genomic variations affect gene transcriptions and further contribute to diseases’ risk.

His research interest focuses on identifying causative genomic variations, genes, and splicing transcripts of human polygenic diseases using genome-wide association study (GWAS), whole-genome sequencing (WGS), RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, and DNA methylation. Using cutting-edge integrative omics approaches, he has identified a list of functional genetic variants and gene domains (e.g., SNX19, CYP2D6) that potentially increase the risk of schizophrenia. Another research interest of his lab is performing genome editing on neural stem cells of their identified genomic targets, followed by genome editing of human iPS cell lines, and differentiated them to functional neurons and glia for mechanism investigation. The results will help provide accurate molecular targets to guide the future development of precise and effective therapeutics.

He received his Ph.D. degree in Human Genetics at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He performed his postdoc work at the School of Medicine of Johns Hopkins and Stanford. He has published 17 papers, 7 of them are first-authored that include 3 papers published on Molecular Psychiatry. Furthermore, Dr. Ma served as a reviewer for 14 peer-reviewed journals.

Liang Ma, Ph.D.

Education