Dr. Wen-Hsuan Chang is the Head of Target Validation at AcuraStem. She leads the biology team on the NeuroRx® technology platform. Dr. Chang’s team has performed the detailed work to understand the therapeutic mechanisms underlying our drug programs, and utilizing that knowledge for clinical biomarker development. They are continually assessing new targets for advancement into AcuraStem’s preclinical pipeline, continually innovating the patient-specific models of the NeuroRx® technology platform to recapitulate new aspects of disease, and expanding the platform into new indications. Dr. Chang previously led the establishment and validation of the NeuroRx® platform from the biology side. She received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Southern California. After her Ph.D., Dr. Chang performed postdoctoral work in the laboratory of AcuraStem’s co-founder and scientific advisory board chairman, Dr. Justin Ichida at USC, where she identified key mechanisms by which the C9orf72 repeat expansion causes neurodegeneration in ALS and frontotemporal dementia.