Scripps Research neuroscientist Li Ye honored with esteemed Chan Zuckerberg Initiative award

The Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award recognizes Ye’s pioneering research into how the communication between our brain and body impacts neurodegenerative diseases.

November 08, 2023

LA JOLLA, CA—Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases impact millions of people around the world, and yet, our scientific understanding of these conditions and available treatment options remains severely limited. Li Ye, PhD, associate professor in the Departments of Neuroscience and Molecular Medicine and the Abide-Vividion Chair in Chemistry and Chemical Biology, has been honored with the Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) for his work uncovering the brain-body connection and its role in neurodegenerative diseases.

Launched in 2018, the CZI Neurodegeneration Challenge Network (NCDN) gives these awards to early career academic investigators who are pioneers in the neurodegeneration field, especially those who are making discoveries at the cross-section of multiple disciplines. The NCDN was founded to bring together outstanding, innovative scientists and ask them to think differently about how to work together to solve neurodegeneration. As an award recipient, Ye will receive $1.2 million in funding over the course of four years, during which time he will also receive mentorship support and resources from the NCDN. 

“There’s still so much for us to understand about the complex link between our nervous systems and metabolic organs, notably how these connections can impact a range of neurodegenerative diseases,” says Ye. “I am honored to receive the Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which recognizes our team’s cutting-edge imaging technologies and drive to discover new avenues for treating these conditions that severely disrupt the lives of millions of people.”  

Ye is being honored for his research in understanding the brain’s role in regulating our metabolisms. Because neurons have a high energy demand to function, the central nervous system becomes very sensitive to metabolic stress. Ye is determined to find out how the CNS adapting to this stress in turn affects the rest of the body’s physiology—at the biochemical, cellular and circuit levels. Through identifying these adaptive molecular and circuit mechanisms, Ye’s overarching goal is to target metabolic disorders, and in this case, neurodegenerative diseases.

To accomplish this, Ye and his lab design and use novel system tools for brain-wide structural mapping, imaging and high throughput screening, as well as circuit-based technologies. Harnessing these tools, Ye and his lab have already uncovered a number of key insights about the inner workings of the nervous system, including a recent Nature paper showing how colder temperatures trigger the brain to boost appetite. 

Ye earned his PhD in biological sciences from Harvard University, completing his postdoctoral studies at Stanford University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He joined Scripps Research in 2018 and was named the Abide-Vividion Chair in 2022. Ye has received numerous additional awards and honors for his research, including most recently the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Whitehall Foundation Research Award and a Baxter Foundation Young Faculty Award.

“Collaboration is the only way we will be able to solve such an immense problem as neurodegeneration, and I am grateful for the opportunity to partner with other scientists at the NCDN who are creatively and tirelessly working to address this growing threat to human health,” Ye adds.  

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