Leon T
- Research Program Mentor
PhD at Yale University
Expertise
neurodegeneration, lysosomal biology, neuroscience, RNA-sequencing
Bio
My name is Leon Tejwani and I am currently a postdoctoral scientist working at Denali Therapeutics, a company based in South SF that focuses on neurodegenerative disorders. During my time working in biomedical research (2010-2016 at UC San Diego as an undergrad, master's student, and research associate; 2016-2021 at Yale University as a PhD student; 2021-now at Denali), I have focused on understanding mechanisms of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases, which include diseases like autism spectrum disorders and Alzheimer's disease, respectively. Overall, the goal of my research has been to take advantage of novel technologies to reveal mechanisms of disease pathogenesis, with the hope that this can translate into better therapeutic strategies for diseases that do not currently have effective treatments. When I'm not in the lab, I enjoy playing tennis, exercising, spending time with family, and exploring San Francisco with my partner and our Jindo puppy. Fun hobby-- when I was in grad school, I also used to teach indoor cycling classes at a boutique studio in CT for a few years. Very different energy than I would have in the lab, but it was super helpful to have a balanced routine during stressful times in graduate school!Project ideas
Identifying novel strategies to treating neurodegenerative disorders
In recent years, many groups have performed large-scale functional genomics screens to identify target genes that can influence the cellular phenotypes thought to be central to neurodegenerative diseases. The results of many of these screens are publicly available. This project would involve 1) determining which cellular phenotypes would be of highest interest to target for a specific neurodegenerative disease; 2) mining the publicly available datasets to create a short list of candidate target genes; 3) reading through literature about candidate targets to prioritize specific ones based on specificity; 4) developing a therapeutic strategy to target the specific molecule of interest.