Dr. Jun-feng Wang

Biography

He is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Manitoba, Canada.

Research Interest

The primary goal of my research is to understand the role of oxidative stress-induced damage to neurotransmission in depression and Alzheimer’s disease and to determine if activation of endogenous antioxidant defenses has potential for the treatment of these diseases. Increasing evidence indicates that mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with major depressive disorder and Alzheimer’s disease. Mitochondrial dysfunction is the major source for production of reactive oxygen species that cause oxidative stress and facilitate neuroinflammation process. In my laboratory, we are examining how various oxidative protein modifications, particularly cysteine oxidative modification, affect synaptic proteins, subsequently causing their functional change; and establishing whether thioredoxin antioxidant system and its regulatory factors inhibit oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, depressive-like behaviours and impairment of learning and memory in depression and Alzheimer’s disease. These studies should, in the near future, lead to identifying new therapeutic targets for investigation in clinical trials.