Ritchie Chen, Ph.D.

K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award
Image
photo of Ritchie Chen
Institution
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA

Dr. Ritchie Chen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Bioengineering at Stanford University. His research seeks to overcome challenges associated with utilizing optogenetics as a clinical therapy. Here, under the joint mentorship of Drs. Karl Deisseroth and Ivan Soltesz, he will utilize mouse models to test the hypothesis that supersensitive and red-shifted Channelrhodopsins can enable transcranial and cell type specific termination of spontaneous, recurrent seizures. This platform overcomes many of the hurdles associated with optogenetics, including invasiveness, viral-targeting of neural subpopulations, and scalability. Furthermore, it will identify new possibilities for the treatment of epilepsy and may be extended to the treatment of other neurological disorders. Dr. Chen received his Bachelor of Science from University of California Berkeley and his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.