Yue Feng, Ph.D.
Independent Investigator

Dr. Yue Feng is currently Associate Professor of Pharmacology at Emory University School of Medicine. She received her M.D. from Beijing Medical University (currently renamed Beijing University Health Science Center) in 1986, and her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology with the Outstanding Research Award from Vanderbilt University in 1990. Following completion of postdoctoral training in the Howard Hughes laboratory headed by Dr. Steve Warren, Dr. Feng joined the faculty in the Department of Pharmacology at Emory University in 1998. As a starting scientist, she received the Faculty Development Award from PhRMA in 1999.

Dr. Feng has a long-standing interest in mental disorders, focusing on the key proteins that govern mRNA homeostasis and protein synthesis to control normal brain function, and how defects in such regulation may lead to brain dysfunction. Her research has made significant contribution in understanding the role of the fragile X mental retardation protein in protein translation during neuronal development and synaptic plasticity. Another major focus in the Feng lab is to elucidate fundamental rules that govern CNS myelin development and repair, which is a critical prerequisite for developing novel strategies against myelin disorders. Emerging evidence indicates that aberrant development and/or maintenance of myelin is an underlying factor for the functional disconnectivity in schizophrenia, which becomes a focus in recent schizophrenia research. The project supported by the NARSAD Independent Investigator Award will elucidate whether schizophrenia-associated genetic alterations in the qkI gene, which encodes an essential factor for CNS myelination, may underlie the deficits in qkI expression, the reduced expression of myelin genes, and myelin impairment in the schizophrenia brain.

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