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Dr Eunju Jenny Shin

    Dr Eunju Jenny Shin

    Title
    Lecturer in Neuroscience
    Location
    Huxley Building : 028
    Contact me
    E-mail
    Phone
    +44 1782 731483
    Email
    e.shin@keele.ac.uk

    Biography

    Biography

    Dr Eunju Jenny Shin completed her BSc in Biological Sciences at Ajou University, South Korea in 2003, achieving the top graduate position within the Natural Science College. She then moved to the UK with the award of Chevening Scholarship from the British Council to study Molecular Pharmacology (MSc) at the University of Manchester, researching cortical interneuron development in foetal brain (Trinh et al., 2006, European Journal of Neuroscience). She continued investigating on development of neurons during her PhD training, differentiating mouse embryonic stem cells into medium spiny neurons to be used in cell replacement therapy in Huntington’s disease (Shin et al., 2012, Stem Cell Reviews and Reports). This was performed in Prof. Rosemary Fricker’s lab at Keele University from 2005 to 2009. She then had a slight change of research field (from Huntington’s disease to Parkinson’s disease) and skillsets (more in vivo) during her postdoctoral training.

    Following her PhD supervisor’s footsteps, she went to the world-renowned Prof. Anders Björklund’s lab in Lund University, Sweden who pioneered cell replacement therapy for Parkinson’s disease. Dr Shin worked on finding mechanisms underlying devastating graft-induced dyskinesia (uncontrolled movement) following cell transplantation in Parkinson’s patients (Shin et al., 2012, Neurobiology of Disease), a role of noradrenergic neurons in motor impairments and development of L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia in Parkinson’s disease (Shin et al., 2014, Experimental Neurology), and α-Synuclein induced toxicity in brain stem serotonin neurons (Wan*, Shin* et al., 2016, Scientific Reports).

    She then moved back to the UK in 2014, starting to study neurodevelopmental mechanisms in schizophrenia (SZ). She started to use human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), genome engineering and directed differentiation towards cortical excitatory and inhibitory neurons. This was initiated during her second postdoctoral period at Cardiff University and continued on in her first independent lab at the Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute, Cardiff University. Her lab further utilised the most up-to-date research tools such as single cell RNA sequencing, single cell qRT-PCR and high-content screening such as CellInsight CX7.

    The most recent research output from her lab is available at Nature Communications. This research is the first time that genetic disruption of specific cell processes crucial to brain development has been linked to disease risk in a wide range of psychiatric disorders, sketching the foundations for an integrated aetiological model of psychiatric genetic disorders and their developmental origins.

    Since Dec 2021, Dr Shin is at Keele University as a lecturer in Neuroscience, aiming to further identify fundamental principles in cortical neuron development and processes altered in neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders leading to novel drug target identification and patient treatment response prediction. Her research utilises a wide range of techniques such as human pluripotent stem cell differentiation, CRISPR interference, single cell transcriptomics, proteomics, genetic analyses and various in vitro cellular assays.

    School of Life Sciences,
    Huxley Building,
    Keele University,
    Staffordshire,
    ST5 5BG
    Tel: +44 (0) 1782 734414