Principal Investigator
Derek Narendra, MD, PhD
Lasker Clinical Research Scholar and Investigator
E-mail: Narendradp@nih.gov
Dr. Narendra received his MD from the University of Michigan and his PhD from Cambridge University. He subsequently completed the Mass General Neurology Residency at Harvard Medical School and the Penn Neurology fellowship in Movement Disorders.
Dr. Narendra became chief of the Inherited Movement Disorders Unit, Neurogenetics Branch, NINDS in 2017. He is a recipient of a Lasker Clinical Research Scholarship and the Grass Foundation - American Neurological Association award in Neuroscience.
Lab Members
Alexandra Jean (AJ) Gilsrud
Postbaccalaureate Fellow
E-mail: Alexandra.gilsrud@nih.gov
Alexandra Jean Gilsrud received her bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Neuroscience from Western Washington University, where she studied the neurobiology of addiction behavior in rats. She is currently investigating the pathogenicity of PRKN variants of uncertain significance using Fluorescence-activated Cell Sorting. Additionally, she is assisting in the development and behavioral testing of mouse models with mutations in various genes related to mitochondrial stress responses and mitophagy.
Tzu-Hsiang (Eric) Huang, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
E-mail: tzu-hsiang.huang@nih.gov
Dr. Huang received his Ph.D. in biotechnology from National Chung Hsing University in collaboration with Academia Sinica, Taiwan where he investigated the molecular mechanism and mitochondria function of tapetal cells development mediated by Fe deficiency in Arabidopsis. His current work focuses on interrogating neurodegeneration-linked CHCHD2 and CHCHD10 and their mitochondrial interaction network.
Xiaoping Huang, MD
Animal Biologist (Contractor)
E-mail: xiaoping.huang@nih.gov
Xiaoping Huang received her MD degree in pediatrics from Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine. Her current work focuses on clinical samples, mouse work and lab support.
Christian Lantz
PhD Student (NIH Oxford-Cambridge)
E-mail: christian.lantz@nih.gov
Christian Lantz received his BS in biochemistry and molecular biology from Lebanon Valley College. He is currently a PhD student in the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program. He is co-mentored by Professor Matthew Wood at the University of Oxford.
Hsin-Pin Lin, MD, PhD
Clinical Fellow
E-mail: hsin-pin.lin@nih.gov
Dr. Lin received her undergraduate degree at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, and obtained her M.D. and Ph.D. in Life Sciences from Northwestern University in Chicago, IL. She completed the Adult Neurology Residency Program at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL, before she joined the Narendra Lab as a Clinical Fellow in 2021. Her current work focuses on studying mitochondrial stress responses mediated by OMA1 and DELE1 in health and disease and using APEX labeling and imaging mass spectrometry to study protein turnover in vivo.
Mario Shammas
MD/PhD Student (NIH Oxford-Cambridge)
E-mail: mario.shammas@nih.gov
Mario Shammas received his BS in Neuroscience from the University of Michigan in 2016. He is currently an MD/PhD student in the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program, pursuing his MD at the Prtizker School of Medicine (University of Chicago) and his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He is co-mentored by Professor Patrick Chinnery in the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit, Cambridge.
Julia Thayer, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
E-mail: julia.thayer@nih.gov
Dr. Thayer received her Ph.D. in Toxicology from The University of Maryland, Baltimore where she investigated the role of the deubiquitinating enzyme USP24 in autophagy and Parkinson’s disease. Her current work focuses on developing a single cell reporter for the PINK1-Parkin pathway, which she is using in whole genome CRISPRi screens to uncover novel components of the pathway.