Principal Investigator
Wei Niu, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at University of Toledo, also an adjunct professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Michigan. She received her doctorate in cell and molecular biology from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University with Michael Snyder and studied transcriptional regulation. Following her postdoctoral training, she applied her expertise in functional genomics to study molecular mechanisms of autism as a research scientist in the group of James Noonan at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Wei joined University of Michigan as a faculty member in 2016. She also manages the Human Stem Cell and Gene Editing Core for Michigan Medicine that specializes in disease modeling using human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). Her work has focused on identifying the molecular and cellular mechanisms that are important for human neurodevelopment and neural network formation, and how they are altered in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) and developmental and epileptic encephalopathy using hPSC-derived brain organoid models. Her long-term goal is to discover novel mechanistic-based therapeutics for various brain disorders such as autism spectrum disorders and epilepsy. She recently moved to University of Toledo (UM) in August 2023, and her lab at UT will continue to study how human brain develops and genetic causes of NDDs using CRISPR/CAS9 gene editing, stem cells and brain organoids. When Wei is not in lab, she enjoying cooking, baking, gardening, walking in the park/nature walk, spending time with her family and friends. |
Current lab member
Nithini Prabhashwarie Rajakaruna Mudiyanselagei is a PhD student in the lab. Nithini got her master degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry in summer 2023 and recently joined my lab as a graduate student.
Lab members in residence
Daniel C. Jaklic was a master student in Biomedical Engineering and then joined the lab as a research laboratory technician right after his graduation in May 2022. He has been the driving force to making human brain organoids and performing functional analysis in the lab. Before pursuing his curiosity of neuroscience, Dan obtained a B.S. in electrical engineering from University of Michigan in 2015. He then worked for Northrop Grumman in Washington DC for three years as part of a multidisciplinary effort to develop the Aegis Combat System for the US Navy. He dabbled in the automotive industry briefly before returning to school. He is now pursuing a PhD degree in neuroscience at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
When Dan is not in the lab or in class - he loves reading, lifting weights, running, venturing into the unknown, and doing other boring things.
When Dan is not in the lab or in class - he loves reading, lifting weights, running, venturing into the unknown, and doing other boring things.