Yang Hu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology, Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California. He received his medical degree from Beijing Medical University and did his residency in Ophthalmology in China, and a Ph.D. from the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York.
During Dr.Hu’s Ph.D training in Lionel Ivashkiv's lab he demonstrated a previously unknown cross talk between cytokines and chemokines in regulating myeloid cell migration. As a post-doctoral fellow (2007 to 2009) in Zhigang He’s lab at the Harvard Medical School, he studied the neuronal intrinsic mechanisms of CNS axon regeneration and neurodegeneration, using mouse retinal ganglion cells and optic nerve as a model system. He then moved to Merck Research Laboratories to work on drug development for CNS neurodegeneration diseases before establishing his own lab in 2011.
His lab focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms responsible for retinal ganglion cell degeneration and optic nerve regeneration in various optic neuropathies including traumatic, glaucomatous and inflammatory optic nerve injuries, with the goal of building on this understanding to develop effective strategies to promote neuroprotection, regeneration and functional recovery.
