New faculty spotlight: Peng Jiang, Ph.D.

Peng Jiang, Ph.D., is a new faculty member at UNMC. Here is a brief rundown of the experience and expertise he brings to campus.

• Name: Peng Jiang, Ph.D.
• Hometown: Anhui, China
• New title and department at UNMC: Assistant professor, UNMC Department of Developmental Neuroscience, Munroe-Meyer Institute.

Research/professional interests:
Stem cell neural differentiation; stem cells as a model of neurological disease; stem cell regenerative medicine for neural repair

How I fell in love with neuroscience and stem cell research:

I’m fascinated by neuroscience simply because the brain is the body’s most mysterious organ. No one can really say how the brain works. When the brain gets sick, it becomes even more mysterious.

In 2007, the year I started to explore new territories for my postdoctoral research, the groundbreaking human induced pluripotent cells (a.k.a. iPSCs) emerged as a powerful tool in understanding human brain development and disease mechanisms, and potentially reversing disease pathology. I thus became very interested in stem cell biology, and since then I’ve been pursuing research at the interface of stem cell and neuroscience.

Currently, the goal of my lab is to dissect the development pathways and corresponding pathogenesis of neurological diseases using human iPSCs, and develop stem cell regenerative medicine to treat brain injury.

Degrees:

• Ph.D., neurobiology and biophysics, University of Science and Technology of China
• Postdoctoral work, developing stem cell regenerative medicine and stem cell models of neurodevelopmental disorders, University of California at Davis

Memberships:

• Society for Neuroscience
• International Society for Stem Cell Research

Three things people may not know about me:

• I’m a big fan of soccer and love to play soccer.
• I enjoy going to new places and trying new food, especially spicy food.
• I enjoy hiking and fishing.