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Topic: Animal Models of Different Species for Investigating
Neurodegenerative Diseases

Special Issue Introduction:
Animal models are essential to the investigation of neurodegenerative diseases and the development of effective treatment.
Genetically modified rodents have been widely used to model neurodegenerative diseases and provided important insights
into disease pathogenesis. Recently developed gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 also allowed the generation of large animal
(rabbit, pig, monkey) models that can recapitulate important pathological features seen in the patient brains. This Special
Issue will discuss the strengths and limitations of animal models of different species and provide an overview for using
animal models to better understand the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases and to develop effective therapies.

Guest Editor
Prof. Xiao-Jiang Li
GHM Institute of CNS Regeneration, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong,
China.

Prof. Xiao-Jiang Li is a professor at the Institute of Central Nervous System
Regeneration, Jinan University. He also serves as the Director of the Key
Laboratory for Non-Human Primate Animal Models in Guangdong Province.
He is recognized as a national high-level talent and a specially appointed expert.

In 1991, Prof. Li obtained his Ph.D. from Oregon Health Sciences University and
completed his postdoctoral research at Johns Hopkins University. Since 1996, he
has been affiliated with the Department of Human Genetics at Emory University
in the United States, where he was promoted to a tenured professor in 2005.
In 2008, he was selected as a key talent in the Ministry of Education’s talent program. In 2010, he was included in the
national high-level talent introduction plan. From 2012 to 2016, he worked at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental
Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, utilizing CRISPR/Cas9 and other gene editing technologies to create large
animal models for major diseases. In 2019, he joined Jinan University full-time and currently holds the position of professor
at the Institute of Central Nervous System Regeneration.
Prof. Li is dedicated to researching early neural system development, aging, and neurodegenerative diseases. He employs
transgenic animal models (mice, pigs, monkeys) to reveal how important genes and gene variations related to neural system
development lead to protein conformation abnormalities and neuronal cell death associated with aging. His research results
have been published in more than 200 international core journals, including “Cell” and “Nature”. The cumulative citation
rate of his research papers has exceeded 30,210 times, with an H index of 92.

I Ageing and Neurodegenerative Diseases