Jada Lewis earned her PhD in the Curriculum of Genetics and Molecular Biology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her lab is focused on creating better models for Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease and related disorders, and utilizing these models to develop effective cures or therapies.

Originally trained by Drs. Oliver Smithies and Nobuyo Maeda to make gene-targeted mouse models of blood disorders, Dr. Lewis moved into the field of neurodegeneration because she was interested in brain dysfunction and aging. Soon after switching into the field, her grandfather and his sister became ill with Alzheimer’s disease and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, respectively. After watching the devastating effects of these diseases on her entire family, she chose to focus the remainder of her career on finding cures for both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Her lab consists of four technicians, two postdoctoral fellows, two students, and herself. Additionally, her lab often grows over the summer because she enjoys training undergraduate scientists. Students trained by Dr. Lewis have gone on to graduate school at Duke University and Johns Hopkins and medical school at the University of California, San Francisco.