Shane Liddelow is an assistant professor in the Neuroscience Institute and Department of Neuroscience and Physiology at the New York University Langone Health. His research is focused on understanding the interactions between glial cells and neuron degeneration and dysfunction, and what molecules modulate these interactions.

Dr. Liddelow earned his Bachelors of Science (Hons) and Biomedical Science from the University of Melbourne, Australia, majoring in Neuroscience and Anatomy & Cell Biology. His Ph.D. in Pharmacology (also at the University of Melbourne, Australia) with Norman Saunders and Katarzyna Dziegielewska was in the area of the developing blood-brain and blood-cerebrospinal fluid barriers. In his postdoctoral work with Ben Barres at Stanford University, he discovered a close association between astrocytes (the major cell type in the brain), microglia (the resident immune cells of the brain), and abnormal neuron function. This research highlights that one form of reactive astrocyte is induced by factors released by microglia and that these reactive astrocytes release a toxic factor that kills specific subtypes of neurons. When looking at human patients he showed that neurotoxic reactive astrocytes are localized to regions of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and are a common form of reactivity among many other neurodegenerative diseases.

In 2018, Dr. Liddelow established his own independent laboratory in the Neuroscience Institute at NYU Langone. He is continuing to investigate the role that reactive astrocytes play in the initiation and progression of AD. He is pioneering the development of novel in vitro and in vivo models of astrocyte reactivity which properly recapitulate human disease states – allowing for new investigations into glial dysfunction in neurodegenerative disease and in normal aging.