Tian Lab · Department of Neurology · BIDMC / Harvard Medical School
Tian Lab studies why specific neurons become vulnerable or resilient in neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS, Alzheimer's disease, glaucoma, and related disorders — combining disease models, single-cell and spatial biology, and computational approaches to discover mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities.
Philanthropic support can help accelerate early-stage ideas, pilot studies, technology development, trainee research, and therapeutic discovery efforts. These flexible resources are especially valuable for testing high-risk, high-impact concepts and generating preliminary data for larger federal and foundation grants.
Philanthropic support enables high-risk, high-impact experiments that are difficult to fund through federal grants alone — providing the preliminary data needed to pursue larger awards.
Flexible resources allow the lab to recruit and support exceptional graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and early-career researchers working on neurodegenerative disease.
Investing in new computational and experimental platforms — including single-cell multi-omics and AI-guided approaches — accelerates discovery across disease areas.
Bridging the gap between fundamental discoveries and translatable therapeutic hypotheses requires resources beyond standard grant cycles. Philanthropic support helps close this gap.
Our work spans multiple disease contexts and technology platforms, with the shared goal of understanding and ultimately treating neurodegeneration.
Understanding why specific neuronal populations are selectively affected in different neurodegenerative diseases — a fundamental question with broad therapeutic implications.
Mapping disease-associated cell states and tissue microenvironments in relevant models and human-derived systems to identify new mechanistic targets.
Using computational approaches — including foundation models and probabilistic inference — to prioritize mechanisms, drug targets, and therapeutic hypotheses.
Exploring ALS, Alzheimer's disease, glaucoma, and related neurodegenerative conditions where the lab's multi-omics technologies and computational approaches may be applicable.
Individuals, families, foundations, or organizations interested in supporting our research mission are encouraged to contact us or the appropriate BIDMC development office to discuss institutional giving options.
For directed philanthropic support:
Please reference Tian Lab / Feng Tian, PhD and the Department of Neurology at BIDMC when communicating with the institutional development office.
We welcome conversations with supporters interested in neurodegeneration broadly, including disease areas where our models, multi-omic technologies, and computational approaches may be applicable.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center · Department of Neurology
Harvard Medical School · Boston, MA