Faculty Spotlight: Baojin Ding

Baojin Ding, MD, PhD, joined the Department of Biology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette as an Assistant Professor in August 2018. He received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2010 from Louisiana State University. He received his MS in Clinical Laboratory in 2004 from Wenzhou Medical University and his Bachelor of medicine (MD equivalent) in 2001 from Medical College of Qingdao University in China. After his postdoctoral research from 2010 to 2016 in Neuroscience in the laboratories of Drs. Daniel Kilpatrick and Vivian Budnik at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Dr. Ding worked for 2 years in the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center as a research Faculty.

The major focus of Dr. Ding's laboratory is on molecular and cellular neuroscience and related neurological diseases. What are those regulatory mechanisms that serve to establish synaptic circuits and plasticity during the generation of complex behaviors? How to achieve the precise regulation of gene expression in neural development? Does dysregulated gene expression underlie a wide range of neurological disorders? How impaired nucleocytoplasmic transport contribute to aging and neurodegenerative diseases? He addresses these questions using a combination of strategies in Cell Biology, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry together with the cutting edge techniques in reprogramming human neurons from adult fibroblasts, including direct conversion approach and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)-based reprogramming and differentiation. His studies will provide novel insights into molecular mechanisms in neurophysiology and will advance our understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms in certain neurological diseases.

Contact Dr. Ding or learn more through these links:
baojin.ding@louisiana.edu
Baojin Ding's Pubmed site
Baojin Ding's Google Scholar site
Baojin Ding's Research Gate site