Graduate Student – Greenwood Genetic Center
Email: chialuw@clemson.edu
Biosketch
Allen Wu
I graduated from the Fu Jen Catholic University with B.S. in Life Science in 2016 and the National Taiwan University with M.S. in Molecular and Cellular Biology in 2019. During my master’s program, I conducted experiments in Dr. Tsai’s lab in Taiwan. My master’s thesis research topic was related to neurodegenerative disease, ALS. We discovered a novel function of a protein, Pgk1, could improve neurite outgrowth of motor neuron-llike cells, and alleviated degeneration of motor neuron, which maintain NMJ structure and mitigate progressive loss of motor ability in ALS mice and zebrafish model. Apart from research, I enjoy exercising, especially badminton and other balls sport.
Research
My Ph.D. research will be conducted under Dr. Flanagan-Steet at GGC and focus on Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDG) using zebrafish as an animal model. Also, we will build novel transgenic lines to investigate mechanism of disease pathogenesis using genetic, molecular, and biochemical approaches.
Publications
Lin, C.-Y., C.-L. Wu, K.-Z. Lee, Y.-J. Chen, P.-H. Zhang, C.-Y. Chang, H.-J. Harn, S.-Z. Lin and H.-J. Tsai. Extracellular Pgk1 enhances neurite outgrowth of motoneurons through Nogo66/NgR-independent targeting of NogoA. eLife 8, e49175 (2019).
Lin, C.-Y., P.-H. Zhang, Y.-J. Chen, C.-L. Wu, and H.-J. Tsai. Conditional Overexpression of rtn4al in Muscle of Adult Zebrafish Displays Defects Similar to Human Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Marine Biotechnology 21, no. 1 (2019): 52-64.