Resume:

Prof. Meng graduated from China Medical University with a bachelor’s degree in 2006 and a master’s degree in 2009; he received his Ph.D. degree from Hamamatsu University School of Medicine in 2013, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Research Institute for Diseases of Old Age of Juntendo University Tokyo. He joined the faculty as an assistant professor of Neurology at Juntendo University in 2018 and has held a secondary appointment in the Department of Neurodegenerative and Dementia Disorders. Since 2020, He has been a distinguished professor and Ph.D. supervisor of Institute of Neuroscience at Soochow University.

Prof. Meng’s lab is concerned with the molecular mechanism of mitochondrial function and the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s diseases (PD). In this filed, professor Meng has published over 10 original research articles in high impact scientific journals including Nature communications, PNAS, Human molecular Genetics, Communication Biology and PLoS Genetics in recent years. To date, Prof. Meng had been awarded three research grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) (2016-2023), and two research grants from the Research Institute for Diseases of Old Age. Current research projects of Meng’s lab encompass two major areas: understanding the mechanism of mitochondria maintaining cellular homeostasis and determining the process by which defects in mitochondrial lead to aging and age-associated diseases. The lab uses cutting-edge molecular technologies along with integrative, multidisciplinary approaches to illustrate the fundamental process of mitochondria behaves in the model of human cells, Drosophila and rodent animals. The ultimate goal is to gain a comprehensive understanding of how mitochondrial dysfunction and imbalanced cellular homeostasis contribute to pathogenesis of neurological disorders that might in turn lead to novel therapeutic strategies.

Prof. Meng’s lab offers young scientists with multi-faceted training across broad spectrum of research relevant to human health from basic science to translational neurobiological study. Welcome graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to join Meng’s Lab.

Selected publications:

1. Meng H, Yamashita C, Shiba-Fukushima K, Inoshita T, Funayama M; et al. Loss of Parkinson's disease-associated protein CHCHD2 affects mitochondrial crista structure and destabilizes cytochrome c. Nature Communications, 2017, 8:0-15500.

2. Ikeda A, Nishioka K, Meng H, Takanashi M; Hasegawa I, et al., Mutations in CHCHD2 cause alpha-synuclein aggregation. Human Molecular Genetics, 2019, 28(23):3895-3911.

3. Mori A; Hatano T; Inoshita T, Shiba-Fukushima K, Koinuma T, Meng H, Kubo S, et al. Parkinson's disease-associated iPLA2-VIA/PLA2G6 regulates neuronal functions and alpha-synuclein stability through membrane remodeling. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019, 116(41):20689-20699.

4. Imai Y, Inoshita T, Meng H, Shiba K, et al., Light-driven mitochondria relieve a Drosophila model of Parkinson’s disease. Biology Communications.2019, 2(241).

5. Inoshita T; Arano T; Hosaka Y; Meng H; Umezaki Y, Kosugi S, et al. Vps35 in cooperation with LRRK2 regulates synaptic vesicle endocytosis through the endosomal pathway in Drosophila. Human Molecular Genetics, 2017, 26(15): 2933-2948.