Lab Introduction & Major Research Interests
Dr. Wei J. Chen, a physician (MD, National Taiwan University, 1984) and epidemiologist (ScD, Harvard School of Public Health, 1992), currently is Dean of College of Public Health, National Taiwan University. He has received several awards, including Outstanding Research Award of National Science Council, and has been Distinguished Professor of National Taiwan University since 2007.
His research in neurocognitive science is focused on using neuropsychological tasks as potential endophenotypic markers for schizophrenia. First, his lab has conducted research on the Continuous Performance Test (CPT) and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) in various types of studies, including school children and adolescents, adolescent twins, community adults, and schizophrenia patients and their relatives. On the basis of these studies, his team has reported the familial aggregation, heritability, recurrence risk ratios of these tasks as well as their relationship with a variety of schizotypal features and schizophrenia symptoms.
Second, his team has applied CPT and WCST performance indexes in a series of genome-wide linkage scan using a very large sample of multiplex families of sib-pair co-affected with schizophrenia called Taiwan Schizophrenia Linkage Study (TSLS). In addition, these two neuropsychological tasks have been applied in a variety of genetic fine-mapping study of schizophrenia. Many candidate regions or genes have been implicated in these studies.
Third, his lab has embarked on the gene expression research and has identified a seven-microRNA signature as potential peripheral biomarkers for schizophrenia. On the basis of this finding, his team is currently adopting a convergent functional genomics approach to investigate whether there is any mi-RNA-targeted gene that is related to the manifestation of schizophrenia and its associated cognitive deficits. Some preliminary results indicate that the expression levels of certain mi-RNAs are associated with cortical gray matter structure. An ongoing collaboration with a team of U. Melbourne is examining the expressions of certain miRNAs in the post-mortem brain tissue of schizophrenia patients.
Recent Representative Publication ( * corresponding author)
1. Chen WJ* (2013): Taiwan Schizophrenia Linkage Study: Lessons learned from endophenotype-based genome-wide linkage scans and perspective. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B (Neuropsychiatric Genetics) 162: 636-647.
2. Lin S-H, Liu C-M, Hwang T-J, Hsieh MH, Hsiao P-C, Faraone SV, Tsuang MT, Hwu H-G, Chen WJ* (2013): Performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in families of schizophrenia patients with different familial loadings. Schizophrenia Bulletin 39: 537-546.
3. Lai C-Y, Yu S-L, Hsieh MH, Chen C-H, Chen H-Y, Wen C-C, Huang Y-H, Hsiao P-C, Hsiao CK, Liu C-M, Yang P-C, Hwu H-G, Chen WJ* (2011): MicroRNA expression aberration as potential peripheral blood biomarkers for schizophrenia. PLoS ONE 6: e21635.