Tzu-Hao Cheng

I have been trained as a biochemist and molecular biologist with great interest to understand the process of transcription by RNA polymerase II over DNA templates with lengthy nucleotide repeats. In our earlier works (Cell 2012; PLoS Genetics 2015; Science 2016), we demonstrated that the mRNA synthesis of mutant, but not wild-type normal gene is selectively reduced by down-regulation of the transcription elongation factor SUPT4H in animal models for Huntington’s disease (HD) and C9ORF72 amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (C9-ALS), suggesting SUPT4H is an effective therapeutic target appliable to a variety of neurodegenerative disorders that are caused by nucleotide repeat expansion. We are very interested in translating these scientific findings and exploring the design and development of SUPT4H small-molecule inhibitors for clinical use.