Dr. De-Maw Chuang is the Chief of the Section on Molecular Neurobiology in the Mood and Anxiety Disorder Program of the National Institute of Mental Health at the National Institutes of Health.  He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the Molecular and Cellular Biology Program of the State University at Stony Brook in 1971 and received his postdoctoral training in the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology at Nutley, New Jersey.  He joined the Institute in 1973 as a Guest Worker and was sequentially promoted to a Staff Fellow, Group Head, and Unit Chief.  Since 1992, he has been holding the current position of a Section Chief.  He has worked throughout his career as a neuroscientist, pharmacologist and molecular biologist.  His pioneering study on b-adrenergic receptor internalization published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), USA, is a landmark discovery, which has opened a very important area of research in multiple neurotransmitter receptor systems.

       The focus of Dr. Chuang's current research is on the mechanisms and implications of neuronal apoptosis, known as programmed cell death.  One of his major findings concerns the mechanisms and actions of lithium, which is used to treat manic-depressive illness, but its therapeutic mechanism has until now remained unknown.  Remarkably, he recently discovered that lithium has robust neuroprotective effects against glutamate-induced programmed cell death of brain neurons.  This finding has strong implications for its therapeutic mechanisms and was published in the PNAS in 1998.  Dr. Chuang further demonstrated that lithium has significant beneficial effects in animal models of stroke and Huntington's disease.  His findings set the stage for an exciting possibility that lithium may have additional uses to treat neurodegenerative disorders.

       The other seminal accomplishment of Dr. Chuang's research concerns glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), a common metabolic enzyme.  Surprisingly, he found that GAPDH over-expression and nuclear translocation is involved in neuronal programmed cell death, and is implicated in the pathogenesis of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders such as Huntington's disease.  His novel GAPDH model, published in Nature Medicine, PNAS and others, has generated great enthusiasm in the field.

       Dr. Chuang has published over 170 papers.  His innovative research has advanced our understanding of the basic mechanisms involved in neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders.  For these important contributions, he has received awards and honors.  Among them, he was the winner of the prestigious NIH Director's Award in 1997.  Dr. Chuang was also the award recipient from the Japan Aging and Health Foundation in 1999.  He is a member of several distinguished scientific societies including the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.  He has trained more than 30 postdoctoral fellows, many of whom are now holding important posts in universities and research institutes.

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