TDP-43 and Neurodegeneration: From Bench to Bedside

Vijay Kumar, Ph.D. has been Assistant Professor in Amity University, since 2018. He obtained his PhD in Biophysics from All India Institute of Medical sciences, New Delhi, India and did his Postdoctoral training from the university of Massachusetts Medical school, Massachusetts, USA. His postdoctoral research was focused on folding and aggregation studies of proteins, SOD1 and TDP-43 involved in motor neuron disease, ALS and FTD. Back to India, he worked as a Principal Investigator under DST-SERB Young Scientist Scheme in Jamia Millia Islamia (A central university), New Delhi. His present research interests focus on the area of folding, misfolding and aggregation of proteins and the role of toxic RNA species involved in the Neurodegenerative Diseases. Dr. Kumar is a member of the Protein Society, Indian Biophysical Society (IBS), Indian Academy of Neurosciences (IAN), and the International society for Neurochemistry (ISN). He had a Junior Research Fellowship/Senior Research fellowship (SRF) from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, India and a DAAD Fellowship, Germany.

Manoj Kumar Jaiswal, Ph.D., has been non-tenure track faculty (Instructor) in the Department of Psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY, since 2017. He obtained PhD degree at the Georg-August University, Goettingen, Germany, and postdoctoral training at MIT, Cambridge, MA and CNRM, Bethesda, MD. More recently, Dr. Jaiswal is a Research Scientist in the Department of Psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center in NY. His current research focuses on studies related to neurodegeneration in ALS, motor neuron disease, brain Injury, and psychiatric disorders. He is a recipient of an NIH Career Development Award and was appointed as a Career Development Fellow and later a Senior Research Fellow at the CNRM in Bethesda, MD where he studied molecular mechanisms of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) using 2-photon in-vivo imaging and 3-D microscopy. Dr. Jaiswal, has received numerous honors and awards, including scholarships and poster awards, and was invited to present lectures and seminars. He is a member of Society for Neuroscience (SfN) and the National Neurotrauma Society (NNS). He has been the Principal Investigator of a National Institute of Health/DoD: Pilot Project entitled: “Balance between inhibition and excitation and the vascular trauma in sensory barrel cortex after TBI: in-vivo imaging approach. He is a reviewer and editor for many journals, including Scientific Reports, Annals of Neurology and Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience. He has authored numerous articles, book and book chapters on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Motor Neuron Disease and Psychiatric Disorders.