Alex Koon

Education

• 2012 Ph.D. University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA
• 2003 B.Sc. Boston College, USA

Position

• Senior Lecturer, School of Life Sciences

Research Interests

• Synaptic plasticity
• Neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases
• Drosophila neurobiology
• Science communication
• Humour as a pedagogical approach

Representative Publications

Ngai CBS, Singh RG, Lu W, Koon AC†. Grappling with the COVID-19 Health Crisis: Content Analysis of Communication Strategies and Their Effects on Public Engagement on Social Media. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2020; 22(8), e21360.

Hong H*, Koon AC*, Chen ZS, Wei Y, An Y, Li W, Lau MHY, Lau KF, Ngo JCK, Wong CH, Au-Yeung HY, Zimmerman SC, Chan HYE. AQAMAN, a bisamidine-based inhibitor of toxic protein inclusions in neurons, ameliorates cytotoxicity in polyglutamine disease models. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2019; 294(8):2757-2770.

Ngai SBC, Singh RG, Koon AC†. A discourse analysis of the macro-structure, metadiscoursal and microdiscoursal features in the abstracts of research articles across multiple science disciplines. PLOS One, 2018; 13(10):e0205417.

Koon AC, Chen ZS, Peng S, Fung JMS, Zhang X, Lembke KM, Chow HK, Frank CA, Jiang L, Lau KF, Chan HYE. Drosophila Exo70 is essential for neurite extension and survival under thermal stress. Journal of Neuroscience, 2018; 38(37):8071-8086.

Koon AC, Chan HY. Drosophila melanogaster As a Model Organism to Study RNA Toxicity of Repeat Expansion-Associated Neurodegenerative and Neuromuscular Diseases. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, 2017; 11:70.

Speese SD, Ashley J, Jokhi V, Nunnari J, Barria R, Li Y, Ataman B, Koon A, Chang YT, Li Q, Moore MJ, Budnik V. Nuclear Envelope Budding Enables Large Ribonucleoprotein Particle Export during Synaptic Wnt Signaling. Cell, 2012; 149(4):832-46.

Koon AC, Budnik V. Inhibitory control of synaptic and behavioral plasticity by octopaminergic signaling. Journal of Neuroscience, 2012; 32(18):6312-22. Koon AC, Ashley J, Barria R, DasGupta S, Brain R, Waddell S, Alkema M, Budnik V. Autoregulatory and paracrine control of synaptic and behavioral plasticity by octopaminergic signaling‡. Nature Neuroscience, 2011; 14(2):190-199.

Lin Y, Bloodgood BL, Hauser JL, Lapan AD, Koon AC, Kim TK, Hu LS, Malik AN, Greenberg ME. Activity-dependent regulation of inhibitory synapse development by Npas4. Nature, 2008; 455(7217):1198-1204.

Paradis S, Harrar DB, Lin Y, Koon AC, Hauser JL, Griffith EC, Zhu L, Brass LF, Chen C, Greenberg ME. An RNAi-based approach identifies molecules required for glutamatergic and GABAergic synapse development. Neuron, 2007; 53(2):217-232.

Research Grants

• 2021-2022, Teaching Development Grant (TDG), Humour as a pedagogical approach to improve student engagement, enhance learning and relieve stress, $130,433 (Principal Investigator)
• 2020-2022, General Research Fund (GRF), The role of adhesion molecule FasII/NCAM in synaptic dysfunction and neurodegeneration in myotonic dystrophy type I, $892,655 (Co-Investigator) (Same grant as below. After forfeiting due to changing to teaching track, the grant was re-acquired by Prof. Ho Yin Edwin Chan as PI.)
• 2019-2021, General Research Fund (GRF), The role of adhesion molecule FasII/NCAM in synaptic dysfunction and neurodegeneration in myotonic dystrophy type I, $800,860 (Principal Investigator) (Forfeited in 2019 due to changing to teaching track)
• 2018-2020, General Research Fund (GRF), Investigating the role of PAPD5 and its target microRNAs in RNA toxicity of polyglutamine diseases, $677,160 (Principal Investigator) (Transferred to Prof. Ho Yin Edwin Chan in 2019 due to changing to teaching track)
• 2016-2017, Direct Grant for Research at CUHK, Regulation of synaptic plasticity in neurodegenerative diseases, $150,000 (Principal Investigator)

Award

• 2013-2015 UQ Postdoctoral Fellowship, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Australia

Professional Activities

• Member of the Society for Neuroscience, USA, since 2011
• Associate Editor, Cell & Cellular Life Sciences Journal, since 2018.
• Associate Editor, Annals of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, since 2018.