Virginia Man-Yee Lee, Ph.D.

The John H. Ware III Professor in Alzheimer’s Research, Dept of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine; Director, Center for Neurodegenerative Disease, University of Pennsylvania


Dr. Lee is a world renowned leader in research on tau, alpha-synuclein and the beta-amyloid precursor protein and their pathobiological roles in such neurodegenerative diseases as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and frontotemporal dementias. In particular, Dr. Lee is attempting to determine the pathogenic roles of the abnormal proteins comprising senile plaques, Lewy bodies and neurofibrillary tangles, major pathological lesions found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Funded Research

These projects were made possible from Cure Alzheimer's Fund support.

Selected Publications

These published papers resulted from Cure Alzheimer’s Fund support.

Guo, J. L., & Lee, V. M. Seeding of Normal Tau by Pathological Tau Conformers Drives Pathogenesis of Alzheimer-like Tangles, Journal of Biological Chemistry, March 3, 2011, Read More

Yamada, K., Cirrito, J. R., Stewart, F. R., Jiang, H., Finn, M. B., Holmes, B. B., Binder, L. I., Mandelkow, E. M., Diamond, M. I., Lee, V. M., & Holtzman, D. M. In vivo microdialysis reveals age-dependent decrease of brain interstitial fluid tau levels in P301S human tau transgenic mice, Journal of Neuroscience, September 14, 2011, Read More

Iba, M., McBride, J. D., Guo, J. L., Zhang, B., Trojanowski, J. Q., & Lee, V. M. Tau pathology spreads in S19 tau transgenic mice following locus coeruleus (LC) injections of synthestic tau fibrils is determined by the LC’s afferent and efferent connections, Acta Neuropathologica, July 7, 2015, Read More

Iba, M., Guo, J. L., McBride, J. D., Zhang, B., Trojanowski, J. Q., & Lee, V. M. Synthetic tau fibrils mediate transmission of neurofibrillary tangles in a transgenic mouse model of Alzhiemer’s like tauopathy, Journal of Neuroscience, January 16, 2013, Read More

Young, A. L., Vogel, J. W., Robinson, J. L., McMillan, C. T., Ossenkoppele, R., Wolk, D. A., Irwin, D. J., Elman, L., Grossman, M., Lee, V. M., Lee, E. B., & Hansson, O. Data-driven neuropathological staging and subtyping of TDP-43 proteinopathies, Brain, May 8, 2023, Read More

Leyns, C. E. G., Gratuze, M., Narasimhan, S., Jain, N., Koscal, L. J., Jiang, H., Manis, M., Colonna, M., Lee, V. M. Y., Ulrich, J. D., & Holtzman, D. M. TREM2 Function Impedes Tau Seeding in Neuritic Plaques, Nature Neuroscience, June 1, 2019, Read More