This week HudsonAlpha virtually hosted Jennifer S. Yokoyama, PhD, for the Research Seminar series. Dr. Yokoyama is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Neurology & Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at the Weill Institute for Neurosciences at University of California San Francisco. Rick Myers, PhD, HudsonAlpha President, Science Director and M. A. Loya Chair in Genomics, hosted the seminar.
In her talk entitled “Gene discovery in diverse neurodegenerative disease cohorts”, Yokoyama discussed recent work that her lab, along with HudsonAlpha collaborators in Myers’ lab, have performed on determining genetic influences of neurodegenerative disease. She shared their discovery of a gene called TET2 that may be involved in the neurodegenerative disease frontotemporal dementia.
Yokoyama also gave the audience a sneak peek of early data analysis from samples obtained through the Multi-Partner Consortium to Expand Dementia Research in Latin America (ReDLat) of which she and HudsonAlpha are active participants. To round out her talk, Yokoyama presented data highlighting an interesting new study from her lab that aims to use transcriptomics as a biomarker for neurodegenerative diseases.
To learn more about Dr. Yokoyama’s research, visit her lab website here.
More information on HudsonAlpha Research Seminars, including the upcoming schedule, can be found at hudsonalpha.org/seminars.