Dr. Dong-oh Seo is an Assistant Professor at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. His research broadly focuses on the impact of the gut microbiome on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) development, as well as the interactions between neuropsychiatric symptoms and AD pathology. Dr. Seo’s scientific journey began with investigating the neurobiological mechanisms involved in memory—a process whose failure is a major symptom of AD. During his pre-doctoral and initial post-doctoral training at the University of Texas at Austin and later at Washington University in St. Louis, he employed modern high-resolution methods to control and measure specific populations of brain cells in rodent models.While conducting these projects, he developed a growing interest in the underlying pathologies that drive memory failure. This interest led him to join Dr. David Holtzman’s laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis in late 2018 as a post-doctoral research associate and research instructor, where he began studying AD pathogenesis. In the Holtzman lab, Dr. Seo pioneered research on the interaction between gut microbiota and tau-mediated neurodegeneration, using neuropathological, biochemical, and multi-omics approaches. This work provides critical new evidence suggesting that the gut microbiota may play an essential role in modulating tauopathy and, ultimately, neurodegeneration in AD and other neurodegenerative disorders. Building on this research, his current work further focuses on investigating the interactions between gut microbiota and the development of AD pathologies, as well as developing novel therapeutic strategies that modulate the gut microbiota—such as dietary fiber intake or metabolite-based dietary supplementation.

To learn more, visit Dr. Seo’s lab webpage.