~2026 News~
June
Hannah Ball's First Author publication is In Press at Nature Communications on the role of TDP-43 oxidation in regulating RNA granule-mitochondria contacts and PP1 phosphatase phase separation dynamics, and its misregulation in ALS: “TDP-43 oxidation and PP1 crosstalk at RNA granule-mitochondria contact sites”. Congrats Hannah Ball and co-author Abby Woods! Highlighted in Feinberg news.
Learn more about these exciting findings in: Our Discoveries!
Hannah Ball passes her PhD Thesis Defense (for the Driskill Graduate Program in Life Sciences) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Congrats Hannah!
Anika Gurbani presents her research on mitochondria-lysosome contact site dysfunction in Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease, and Miriam Goras presents her research on α-Synuclein dynamics in Parkinson's disease at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine's 2026 Neurology & Neuroscience Day.
Kevin Shen presents his research on a new molecular pathway linking amyloid-beta and Tau dynamics in Alzheimer’s disease at the 2026 Gordon Research Conference: Cell Biology of the Neuron - Emerging Themes in Neuronal Structure, Function and Homeostasis in Physiological and Pathological Conditions.
Miriam Goras presents her research on new cellular roles of α-Synuclein in Parkinson's disease at the 2026 Keystone Symposia on Neurodegeneration: From Neurocentric to System-Wide Perspectives.
May
Danyu Luo, MA Ly, and Kevin Shen present their research on new cellular mechanisms in Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease at the 2026 Northwestern University Alzheimer Day Symposium.
MA Ly (NUIN PhD Program) passes her PhD Qualifying Exam. Congrats MA!
April
Miriam Goras, MA Ly, Danyu Luo and Anika Gurbani present their research on organelle dynamics using Super-Resolution live microscopy in Parkinson’s disease, Frontotemporal Dementia, and Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) 2026 Annual Meeting. Congrats to Miriam Goras for a Selected Talk at the “Movement Disorders: Biomarkers, Mechanisms, and Pathophysiology” Session!
Kevin Shen presents his research on a new cellular mechanism linking amyloid-beta and Tau dynamics in Alzheimer’s disease at the Mechanisms of Aging and Dementia T32 Annual Training Days.
March
Hannah Ball presents her research on new dynamic roles and regulation of TDP-43 at inter-organelle contact sites in ALS at the 2026 Annual Packard Center ALS Research Symposium.
Yvette Wong is an Invited Speaker at the 2026 NITMB (National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology) Chicago Condensate Day and presents the lab’s research on protein phase separation dynamics and regulation implicated in ALS and Frontotemporal Dementia.
February
Danyu Luo presents her research on converging mechanisms in Tau and TDP-43 associated Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) at the 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Frontotemporal Dementia and Related Rare Dementias.
~2025 News~
December
Hannah Ball presents her research on the role of TDP-43 at inter-organelle contact sites in ALS at the 2025 Cell Bio (ASCB|EMBO) Annual Meeting.
November
Hannah Ball and Danyu Luo presents their research on ALS and FTD, and Yvette Wong is an Invited Speaker at the 2025 Les Turner ALS Symposium held at Northwestern University.
October
Yvette Wong is a Selected Speaker for the 2025 Warren Alpert Distinguished Scholars in Neuroscience Symposium, and presents the lab’s exciting research on new pathways contributing to Alzheimer’s disease and ALS etiology.
August
Miriam Goras (NUIN PhD Program) passes her PhD Qualifying Exam. Congrats Miriam!
July
Hannah Ball presents her research on new dynamic roles and regulation of TDP-43 at inter-organelle contact sites in ALS at the 2025 Gordon Research Conference on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Related Motor Neuron Diseases.
Kevin Shen presents his work on a new mechanistic pathway conecting amyloid-beta and tau misregulation in Alzheimer’s disease at the 2025 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC). Congratulations to Kevin for being awarded the Best Student Poster for the Professional Interest Area of Nutrition, Metabolism, and Dementia!!
Danyu Luo (NUIN PhD Program) passes her PhD Qualifying Exam. Congrats Danyu!
June
Yvette Wong is an Invited Speaker at the 2025 Autophagosomes and Endolysosomes Keystone Symposia: From Fundamental Mechanisms to Disease Implications, and presents the lab’s research on novel cellular insights into Parkinson’s disease.
Kevin Shen presents his research on novel cellular mechanisms in Alzheimer’s disease using Super-Resolution live microscopy at the 2025 Alzheimer’s Disease Gordon Research Conference: Multimodal Approaches to Mechanisms and Therapeutic Targets.
May
Danyu Luo presents her research on converging mechanisms in Frontotemporal Dementia, and Kevin Shen presents his research on new cellular mechanisms in Alzheimer’s disease at the 2025 Northwestern University Alzheimer Day Symposium.
April
Miriam Goras, Danyu Luo, Hannah Ball, Kevin Shen and Abby Woods present their research which uncover new cellular mechanisms of organelle dynamics using super-resolution live microscopy in Parkinson’s disease, Frontotemporal Dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and ALS at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) 2025 Annual Meeting. Congrats to Hannah Ball and Kevin Shen for being selected for Scientific Session Talks, and Abby Woods for being selected for a Lightning Talk!
March
Kevin Shen presents his research on novel cellular mechanisms in Alzheimer’s disease at the Mechanisms of Aging and Dementia T32 Annual Training Days.
~2024 News~
November
Abby Woods and Hannah Ball present their research on cellular mechanisms underlying ALS at the Les Turner ALS 2024 Annual Symposium.
October
Hannah Ball, Abby Woods and Kevin Shen present their research on novel mechanisms in ALS and Alzheimer’s disease at the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) 2024 Annual Meeting.
August
Kevin Shen is appointed to the T32 Mechanisms of Aging and Dementia NIH Training Grant. Congrats Kevin!
June
Yvette Wong is an Invited Speaker on “Regulation and function of lysosomal inter-organelle contact sites in health and disease” at the 2024 Parseghian Scientific Conference for Niemann-Pick Type C Research.
May
Kevin Shen presents a first-author poster at Northwestern University’s 2024 Annual Alzheimer Day Conference on super-resolution imaging of organelles in Alzheimer’s disease primary microglia with Yvette Wong and Changiz Geula’s lab.
April
Yvette Wong publishes in Current Opinion in Cell Biology with Erika Holzbaur’s lab reviewing recent insights into the role and regulation of actin waves which cycle around mitochondria: “Mitochondrially-associated actin waves maintain organelle homeostasis and equitable inheritance”.
February
Yvette Wong publishes in Journal of Cell Biology with Leonie Schroder and Dimitri Krainc’s lab on the role of Parkinson’s disease-associated gene Vps13C in regulating lysosomal dynamics and function in dopaminergic neurons: “VPS13C regulates phospho-Rab10-mediated lysosomal function in human dopaminergic neurons”. Highlighted in Feinberg news.
~2023 News~
December
Eric Leisten, Abby Woods and Yvette Wong publish a Viewpoint in Journal of Cell Biology on recent insights into mitochondria-lysosome contact site function and misregulation in disease: “Super-resolution microscopy: Insights into mitochondria-lysosome crosstalk in health and disease”.
Yvette Wong is an Invited Speaker on “Misregulation of inter-organelle contact site dynamics and function in neurodegenerative diseases” at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB/EMBO – Cell Bio) 2023 Annual Meeting.
October
Yvette Wong, Tayler Belton, George Shum and Hannah Ball publish in PNAS with Nirupa Jayaraj, Dimitri Krainc, Rob Burgess and Daniela Menichella’s lab on defective axonal mitochondria-lysosome contact sites in peripheral neurons from a novel mouse model of Charcot-Marie-Tooth Type 2B: “Misregulation of mitochondria-lysosome contact dynamics in Charcot-Marie-Tooth Type 2B disease Rab7 mutant sensory peripheral neurons”. Highlighted in Feinberg news.
September
Yvette Wong is awarded the 2023 Grass Foundation Award in Neuroscience from the American Neurological Association (ANA)!
Yvette Wong publishes in Neuron with Pingping Song and Dimitri Krainc’s lab: “Parkinson’s disease-linked parkin mutation disrupts recycling of synaptic vesicles in human dopaminergic neurons”.
July
Yvette Wong publishes in Science Advances with Wesley Peng (NUIN MD/PhD student), Leonie Schroder, and Pingping Song and Dimitri Krainc on Parkin’s regulation of mitochondria-lysosome contact sites: “Parkin regulates amino acid homeostasis at mitochondria-lysosome (M/L) contact sites in Parkinson’s disease.”
Yvette Wong is an Invited Speaker on “Mitochondria-lysosome contact site dynamics in disease” at the 2023 World Parkinson Congress.
June
Hannah Ball (DGP PhD Program) and Kevin Shen (NUIN PhD Program) pass their PhD Qualifying Exams. Congrats Hannah and Kevin!
George Shum graduates with his Undergraduate Degree with Honors in Neuroscience from Northwestern University for his undergraduate research in the Wong Lab. Congrats George!
May
Eric Leisten and Yvette Wong publish with the Brian Popko lab in Glia on stress granules in oligodendrocytes: “Insights into the mechanism of oligodendrocyte protection and remyelination enhancement by the integrated stress response.”
Yvette Wong is an Invited Speaker on the “Dynamics of mitochondrial and lysosomal crosstalk at inter-organelle contact sites in health and neurodegeneration” at the Journal of Cell Science (JCS) 2023: Imaging Cell Dynamics Meeting.
March
Yvette Wong discusses her work at the Northwestern’s MSTP blitz talk (MD/PhD program).
~2022 News~
November
Yvette Wong is an Invited Speaker on “Mitochondria-lysosome contacts and organelle dynamics in neurodegeneration” at the Minisymposia Session Powering Thoughts: The Regulation of Neuronal Energy Metabolism and Mitochondria on Sunday Nov 13 at the 2022 Society for Neuroscience (SFN) Annual Meeting.
October
Tayler Belton presents her poster on organelle contact sites in disease at the 2022 American Neurological Association (ANA) Annual Meeting.
September
Yvette Wong, Jasmine Cisneros and Catherine Molakal publish on the role of Mid51 and Fis1 regulating lysosomal tethering and connecting Rab7 and Drp1 GTP hydrolysis machinery, in Journal of Cell Biology with Soojin Kim, Pingping Song, Steven Lubbe and Dimitri Krainc: “Mid51/Fis1 mitochondrial oligomerization complex drives lysosomal untethering and network dynamics.”
Yvette Wong presents her research at the DGP PhD Program (Driskill Graduate Program in Life Sciences) 2022 Orientation.
June
George Shum is awarded the Northwestern University 2022 Neuroscience Undergraduate Research Grant to study mitochondria-lysosome contact sites in neurodegeneration. Congrats George!
Tayler Belton and Jasmine Cisneros present their poster, and Yvette Wong is an Invited Speaker and Career Roundtable Panelist at the 2022 Keystone Symposia – Neurodegeneration: The Biological Pathways Driving the Future of Therapeutic Development.
Yvette Wong is an Invited Speaker on inter-organelle contacts at the 2022 Gordon Research Conference – Lysosomes and Endocytosis.
May
Yvette Wong presents on roles of contact sites in health and disease at MitoTalks Down Under.
April
Jasmine Cisneros, Tayler Belton, George Shum, Catherine Molakal and Yvette Wong publish on the roles of mitochondria-lysosome contacts in disease in Trends in Neurosciences: “Mitochondria-lysosome contact site dynamics and misregulation in neurodegenerative diseases.”
Yvette Wong presents on the contribution of mitochondria-lysosome contacts in Parkinson’s disease as a virtual Invited Speaker at “Session 5: Interaction of α-synuclein with organellar pathways” at the Synuclein 2022 Meeting.
Catherine Molakal presents at her Undergraduate Research Conference on cellular defects in mitochondrial-associated mutations.
March
Tayler Belton, Jasmine Cisneros, Eric Leisten and Yvette Wong publish on the dynamic imaging of mitochondria-lysosome contact sites in STAR Protocols: “Live cell microscopy of mitochondria-lysosome contact site formation and tethering dynamics.”
Tayler Belton and Yvette Wong publish on mitochondrial function in neuronal ALS models in Molecular Metabolism with the Bob Kalb Lab: “Neurons undergo pathogenic metabolic reprogramming in models of familial ALS.”
Yvette Wong is an Invited Speaker on the crosstalk at mitochondria-lysosome contact sites at Mito Talks.
January
Tayler Belton is awarded the NINDS Diversity Supplement Research Grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate organelle dynamics in disease. Congrats Tayler!
~2021 News~
December
The Wong lab celebrates its first lab virtual Christmas party!
November
The Wong lab presents their research on mitochondria-lysosome contacts (Jasmine Cisneros & George Shum) and organelle dynamics in neurodegeneration (Eric Leisten & Tayler Belton) at the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) 2021 Annual Meeting.
October
Yvette Wong is awarded the NIH Director’s DP2 New Innovator Award for early-career investigators conducting highly innovative research in the biomedical sciences. Highlighted in Feinberg news.
George Shum is a 2021 Fletcher Undergraduate Research Grant Prize Finalist, an award for the most outstanding 2021 Summer URG projects at Northwestern University. Congrats George!
Jasmine Cisneros and George Shum present their research on mitochondria-lysosome contact site regulation and defects in disease at the American Neurological Association (ANA) 2021 Annual Meeting. Yvette Wong gives a talk at the ANA: Neuromuscular 2 session on Monday, October 18.
September
Yvette Wong presents her research at the NUIN PhD Program 2021 Datablitz Talk (Northwestern University Interdepartmental Neuroscience) and the DGP PhD Program Orientation (Driskill Graduate Program in Life Sciences)
July
Jasmine Cisneros is awarded the NINDS Diversity Supplement Research Grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate organelle dynamics in disease. Congrats Jasmine!
June
George Shum is awarded the Northwestern University 2021 Summer Undergraduate Research Grant to study inter-organelle contact sites in neurodegeneration. Congrats George!
April
Yvette Wong presents on mitochondria-lysosome contact sites as an Invited Speaker at the “Mitochondria Interest Group Session” (Mon April 26) at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) 2021 Annual Meeting.
March
Yvette Wong publishes in Nature Communications with Soojin Kim (NUIN PhD student) and Dimitri Krainc: “Dysregulation of mitochondria-lysosome contacts by GBA1 dysfunction in dopaminergic neuronal models of Parkinson’s disease.“
February
Yvette Wong publishes in Molecular Neurodegeneration with Dimitri Krainc & the Guy Lenaers lab: “Dominant mutations in MIEF1 affect mitochondrial dynamics and cause a singular late onset optic neuropathy.”
~2020 News~
December
Yvette Wong co-chairs a Special Interest Subgroup on “Organelle Cross Talk and Contact Sites” at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB|EMBO) 2020 Annual Meeting.
October
Yvette Wong discusses her work at the Northwestern’s MSTP blitz talk (MD/PhD program) and presents her research on mitochondria-lysosome contact sites in neuronal homeostasis and disease as an Invited Speaker at the Molecular & Cellular Cognition Society (MCCS) 2020 Workshop.
September
Yvette Wong presents her research at the NUIN PhD Program 2020 Retreat (Northwestern University Interdepartmental Neuroscience) and DGP PhD Orientation (Driskill Graduate Program in Life Sciences).