Wan Hee Yoon, PhD

Biography

"Neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental diseases affect millions of people around the globe. Scientists have thought many of these diseases may result from disruptions or failures in the mitochondria, a specialized cellular structure often referred to as the “powerhouse of the cell.
Mitochondria play a key role in the metabolism in cells. Metabolism is a series of biochemical reactions essential for all living organisms. It provides energy and the building blocks for healthy cells. As we age, we lose some of these capabilities of mitochondria, and the quality of our cells declines. This has been implicated in many diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and even cancer.
Our long-term goal is to learn how cells maintain mitochondrial structure and metabolism, how failures in that system by genetic mutations may contribute to human pathologies, and, ultimately, to find treatments for those diseases.
To do this, we use common fruit flies called Drosophila and iPS cells as a disease model. Because fruit flies share approximately 75 percent of a human’s disease genes, they are near-perfect tools for studying conditions that afflict people. We “humanize” these flies by using state-of-the-art gene-editing tools. In addition, we generated numerous iPS cells from patients’ cells carrying mutations in mitochondrial genes. By studying how their mitochondrial dysfunction and mutations contribute to defects in flies and neuronal cells derived from the iPS cells, we can obtain understanding of the root causes for human diseases."

Email

wanhee-yoon@omrf.org

Publications

Research Interests:

• Mendelian mitochondria diseases
• Neurodevelopment disorders
• Alpha-ketoglutarate deficiency
• Harel-Yoon syndrome
• Neuronal stem cells