Dr. Xiaoying Chen is a Principal Investigator and Associate Professor at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, the Institute for Immunology at Tsinghua University, and the Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences. Her lab focuses on understanding brain-immune interactions in Alzheimer’s disease. The major research directions in her lab include: 1) decoding immune responses in Alzheimer’s disease and developing therapeutics, 2) deciphering the brain-immune interface and brain-body interactions, and 3) understanding neuronal plasticity throughout the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. 

Dr. Chen has made significant contributions to our understanding of neuronal plasticity during development (2017, Journal of Neuroscience; 2016, 2020, Protein & Cell; 2020, Nature Communications), learning-related activities (2022, Nature), and neuron-immune interactions in neurodegenerative diseases (2022, Immunity; 2023, Nature).

She has received numerous honors and awards, including the Jeffrey L. Morby Prize for Best Research in Alzheimer’s Disease from the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund (2024), the Early Career Achievement Award from the Alzheimer’s Association (2023), the Career Development Award from the Society for Neuroscience (2023), the Coins for Alzheimer’s Research Trust Award from the Rotary Foundation (2023), the O’Leary Prize for Best Neuroscience Research at Washington University (2022), the Poletsky Award for Alzheimer’s Disease Research from Washington University (2022), and the Tau Consortium Fellowship from the Rainwater Charitable Foundation (2019).

Dr. Chen is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, the Alzheimer’s Association, the American Society for Neurochemistry, the American Neurological Association, and the International Society for Molecular Neurodegeneration. She also serves as a reviewer for numerous journals, including Immunity, Nature Neuroscience, Alzheimer’s & Dementia, Science Advances, Cell Reports, Molecular Neurodegeneration, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Journal of Neuroimmunology, and Translational Neurodegeneration.