Claire Eliane Le Pichon, Ph.D.

Our work is dedicated to advancing our understanding of common molecular and cellular mechanisms of neurodegeneration, with the ultimate goal of developing treatments for neurodegenerative diseases and even preventing them. The lab uses the mouse and human iPSC–derived neurons as model systems. One research focus is on mechanisms of stress-response pathways in neurons, such as the evolutionarily conserved axon-damage signaling pathway under the control of DLK (dual leucine zipper kinase; MAP3K12). This kinase is a critical regulator of the neuronal response to axon injury. Although the DLK stress response has been more extensively studied in the context of trauma such as nerve injury, we have found that it also contributes to neurodegenerative disease (Le Pichon et al., 2017). A second research theme is to understand what makes certain populations of neurons more vulnerable or resilient to neurodegeneration, with a particular focus on motor neuron diseases. Please see a full list of publications at https://www.nichd.nih.gov/research/atNICHD/Investigators/lepichon/publi….

Dr. Claire Le Pichon earned her B.A. degree from Cambridge University, U.K. and her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Columbia University in 2007 in the laboratory of Dr. Stuart Firestein, where her interest in neurodegenerative disease began while studying the function of the cellular prion protein PrPC. After her PhD, Dr. Le Pichon joined the Translational Neuroscience group at Genentech, where she worked on preclinical drug development for neurodegenerative disease pipeline targets, using mouse models of disease. She became an Investigator at the NICHD in 2016. Her laboratory employs a multidisciplinary approach including mouse genetics, wide-scale imaging of whole cleared tissues, single cell sequencing, CRISPR-based genetic screens and mechanistic studies in iPSC-derived neurons to investigate the early events underlying the onset, development, and progression of neurodegenerative diseases.