Vilas Menon

Our group specializes in large-scale data analysis, modeling, and molecular techniques in neuroscience and biology, with applications to neurological disease. As part of the Taub Institute for the Study of Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease, and Center for Translational and Computational Neuroimmunology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), we focus on identifying changes in molecular composition in human and mouse central nervous system tissue in the context of neurodegenerative and neuroimmune disease. We use single-cell and single-nucleus RNA-seq, spatial transcriptomics, and multiplexed immunohistochemistry techniques to characterize both molecular and spatial variation in peripheral blood, cerebrospinal fluid, and post-mortem human tissue from individuals with diagnoses of Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer’s Disease Vascular-Associated Dementia, Parkinson’s Disease, and Frontotemporal Dementia. In addition, we have a targeted program to identify molecular signatures that three groups of individuals: healthy, susceptible, and resilient to disease pathology. To this end, we combine cutting-edge experimental techniques with novel computational approaches for multimodal analysis across patient groups. Our ultimate goal is to identify key disease-specific signatures, cell type dysregulation patterns, and pathways that are likely to reflect changes in disease and in resilience, with a view to prioritizing targets and candidates for therapeutic intervention.

Previously, as a scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science and a Lab Head at HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus, I served as computational analysis lead on a range of publications examining transcriptomic data derived from brain-wide in situ hybridization studies, single-cell RNA-sequencing studies of human, primate, and mouse cortex and subcortical regions, and microarray and single-cell RNA-sequencing data from post-mortem and in vitro-derived brain cells. In parallel, I worked on large-scale data visualization portals for non-computational experts to interact with these atlas data sets to generate or validate hypotheses. These resulted in several flagship aublications from the Allen Institute as part of their atlasing projects, providing extensive insight into probing molecular networks and transcriptome-based identity of subtypes of cells in the central nervous system in health and disease.