Dr. Han-A Park
Dr. Han-A Park received her Ph.D. from the Department of Human Nutrition at Ohio State University and her B.S. and M.S. from the Department of Food and Nutrition at Sookmyung Women’s University, South Korea. She completed her postdoctoral research with the Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Endocrinology, at Yale School of Medicine.
Her research interests are based in the field of nutritional neuroscience, molecular nutrition, and nutritional biochemistry: to understand the cellular bases for intracellular energy metabolism, excitotoxicity-mediated neuronal death signaling, and the use of strategies, including nutritional interventions and pharmacological treatments, to understand and inhibit neurodegenerative pathways in the brain. She is currently studying the dynamics of Bcl2 family proteins; specifically, pro-survival Bcl-xL and its cleavage product pro-death ΔN-Bcl-xL. Her projects examine how these proteins are regulated and the best strategies to prevent ΔN-Bcl-xL formation in order to protect the brain from pathological insults.