Yu-Hui Wong obtained her Ph.D. in developmental neurobiology under the mentorship of Dr. Ming-Ji Fann at the Institute of Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, in 2009. Following her doctoral studies, she pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, under the guidance of Dr. Mu-ming Poo, focusing on investigating the mechanisms of neurotrophin secretion. In 2016, she joined the research group at the Brain Research Center, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. Her laboratory is primarily devoted to unraveling the molecular mechanisms that underlie the differentiation of pluripotent cells into distinct cell types found in the human brain, including neurons, microglia, retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), and other neural lineages. Over the past few years, her team has been utilizing human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from both familial and sporadic patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) to investigate disease mechanisms and to conduct screenings for novel drugs for potential treatment. Remarkably, Yu-Hui Wong's research has led to the successful generation of functional brain cells with consistent quality on a large scale from human iPSCs, including patient-derived iPSCs or those engineered with disease-specific mutations through CRISPR/Cas9 technology. These advancements open up novel opportunities for the development of human in vitro models that can significantly support research and drug discovery efforts. 

Wong's laboratory is working on identifying the molecular mechanisms underlying how a pluripotent cell develops into a defined cell type of human brain, such as neurons, microglia, retinal ganglion cells and other neural lineages.  This has allowed us to generate functional brain cells with high consistency at scale from human iPSCs, including patient-derived iPSCs or those carrying disease-specific mutations by CRISPR/Cas9 technology, offering novel avenues for the development of human in vitro models to support research and drug discovery.