Yu Chen 

Research Fellow

ychena@umich.edu 

I received my Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Toledo. My dissertation research focused on the mechanisms underlying the toxic and lethal effects of a group of amphetamine derivatives known as synthetic cathinones. After obtaining my doctoral degree, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tennessee, studying the specific roles of microglia during neuroinflammatory conditions. I then joined the Kaczorowski's lab to further study the function of microglia in resilience to Alzheimer’s disease. My current research focuses on identifying specific microglia-mediated molecular mechanisms that contribute to cognitive resilience in Alzheimer’s disease by using cell-type specific proteomic profiling. My long-term goal as a researcher is to understand how neuroimmune interactions affect cognitive function in neurodegenerative diseases.