About
Associate Professor
Department of Pediatrics
The goal of Dr. Jun Cai’s laboratory is to explore molecular, genetic and epigenetic regulations of neural development in the CNS as well as mechanisms and therapeutic interventions in neurodevelopmental or neurological disorders. Dr. Jun Cai has a broad background in medicine, biochemistry and molecular biology, developmental biology, and neuroscience, with specific training and expertise in gene targeting manipulation, electroporation in embryo or tissue explants, stereotactic focal injection with drugs, viruses, cells, or neurospheres, neurobehavioral tests, neural conductive evaluation, and generation of rodent models including transgenic mice, hypoxia models, EAE models, drug-induced demyelination-remyelination models, spinal cord and brain traumatic models, and rodent models of glioma etc. The current research focuses on the following three groundbreaking aspects: 1) Developing of therapeutic interventions in neurotrauma; 2) Glial response and neuroinflammation in demyelinating diseases; 3) Parent-offspring and gene-environment interactions (e.g. prenatal opioid exposure, perinatal hypoxia exposure, and whole-life cadmium exposure) in neurodevelopmental and/or neurological disorders.
Research Keywords: neurodevelopment, central nervous system (CNS), neurological disorders, neurotrauma, glia, gene-environment interactions, prenatal exposures, perinatal exposures