Meet the Lab
Tao Ma, MD, PhD
Principal Investigator
Associate Professor
Dr. Ma received his MD in China and his PhD in Neuroscience from Mount Sinai School of Medicine at New York in 2008, working with Drs. Robert Blitzer and Emmanuel Landau. From 2008-2010, he was a postdoctoral research fellow with Dr. Gunnar Gouras in the Department of Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University. From 2010 and 2014, he was an Assistant Research Scientist then a Research Assistant Professor at the New York University Center for Neural Science, laboratory of Dr. Eric Klann. Dr. Ma joined Wake Forest Baptist Health in 2014 and currently is an Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Internal Medicine.
Dr. Ma is a neuroscientist with specialization in learning, memory, and synaptic plasticity. His research focuses on novel molecular mechanisms underlying pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and subsequently trying to identify potential therapeutic targets or biomarkers for AD and other aging-related cognitive impairments. His original research findings on molecular mechanisms in AD have been published in many high-profile peer-reviewed journals—including Journal of Clinical Investigation, Journal of Neuroscience and Nature Neuroscience—and garnered international attention. Dr. Ma is a recipient and principal investigator of National Institute of Health/National Institute of Aging K99/R00 research grant, two R01 research grants, and he received the Alzheimer’s Association New Investigator award. He also serves as principal investigator of a research grant from the BrightFocus Foundation, is the current associate editor of Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and a member of the Society for Neuroscience and the New York Academy of Science.
Antoine (Dibs) Almonte, MPH, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Wenzhong Yang, MD, PhD
Research Fellow
Qian Yang, PhD
Research Fellow
Nicole Kasica
PhD student
Neuroscience
Xin Wang
PhD student
Neuroscience
Saahj Gosrani
MS student
Neuroscience
Hannah Jester
MS student
Neuroscience
Caroline Holland
Undergraduate student,
Wake Forest University
Elizabeth Koscielniak
Undergraduate student,
Wake Forest University
Xueyan (Sherry) Zhou, MD, MS
Lab manager