Kunlin Jin is a Tenured Professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, United States. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in China, where he also served as Assistant Professor in the Institute of Hematology at Beijing University. He came to the US in 1992 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco and then at the University of Pittsburgh from 1995-96, when he was promoted to Instructor. In 1999 he accepted an offer to join the Buck Institute as an Assistant Scientist and has since been promoted to Assistant and then Professor.
Dr. Jin is an author of over 250 peer-reviewed, original research papers. Dr. Jin’s recent papers have been published in competitive journals including the JCI, PNAS and Nature. More importantly, he has been a leader in several areas of investigation related to stroke, specifically the roles of adult neurogenesis and of endogenous neuroprotective proteins in regulating the brain’s response to ischemic injury and, most recently, the effect of aging on these processes. During his follow-up work, he made incredible findings that will profoundly influence the way we think about treatment of brain diseases by cell replacement using stem cells. Dr. Jin first discovered that brain injuries, including those caused by stroke and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, can stimulate stem cells to generate new neurons in rodents as well as in human. In addition, his encouraging findings include how these neural stem cells can be manipulated by growth factors FGF-2, EGF, VEGF and SCF, even after intranasal administration. For many years, there has been the hope to preserve, promote, or delay healthy aging through the treatment of common age-related diseases. Dr. Jin’s discoveries make this a reality.
In addition to his excellent accomplishments, Dr. Jin is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Aging and Disease (www.aginganddisease.org; impact factor: 9.968), and the founder of International Society on Aging and Disease (www.isoad.org).