Our Team

Michael Belloy is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Washington University in Saint Louis, within the Neurogenomics and Informatics Center (NGI). His lab is dedicated to spearheading innovative research in the field of age-related neurological and dementia disorders, employing a multi-modal, big-data approach that integrates genetics, multi-omics, imaging, biomarkers, clinical data and histopathological data. His primary objective is to identify novel genetic risk variants for Alzheimer’s disease, understand their molecular pathways and leverage this knowledge for drug development and personalized genetic medicine. His current work focuses on three primary areas in the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease: 1) Sex dimorphism, supported by an R00 grant, 2) The role of ancestry, and 3) Disease heterogeneity and resilience. He also serves as the vice-chair of the Sex and Gender Differences Professional Interest Area (PIA) for the Alzheimer’s Association.

His academic background melds data analytics, brain imaging research, neurology, Alzheimer’s disease, population genetics and functional genomics. Before joining Washington University, he was first a postdoc and later an instructor at Stanford University in the Department of Neurology, in the lab of Michael Greicius, MD, MPH. During this period, he centered his research efforts on identifying genetic variants that offer protection against APOE*4-related risk for Alzheimer’s disease. He garnered support from an Alzheimer’s Association Research Fellowship (AARF), a Stanford ADRC developmental project and a K99 Pathway to Independence Award. Earlier in his career, he earned his PhD from the University of Antwerp (Belgium) in the lab of Annemie Van der Linden, where he conducted functional brain imaging studies to characterize neural dynamics and develop novel biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease using rodent models. Additionally, he secured a research grant from the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) which facilitated a 6-month research stay in the lab of Shella Keilholz, PhD at Emory University.

Danielle Reid earned her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of North Texas Health Science Center in 2022, where she used next-generation sequencing technology to investigate ethnic-specific differences in mitochondrial oxidative damage in aging and age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and type-2 diabetes. She joined the Belloy lab in 2024 as a second year Postdoctoral Research Associate working on identifying sex-related risk causal genes for AD by leveraging genetic, transcriptomic and proteomic data.

Chenyu Yang obtained a master’s degree of Science in Engineering Data Analytics and Statistics at Washington University in St. Louis in 2023, and a bachelor’s degree in Statistics from the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China. His broader interests are focused on the application of data analytics and machine/deep learning in healthcare. As of February 2024, Chenyu has joined the Belloy lab as a research assistant. In this role, he applies his expertise to tackle large genetics and multi-omics datasets to gain new insights into neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Chenyu aspires to build a solid foundation in biomedical research to pursue a PhD in a related field in the future.