Soyon Hong, PhD

Soyon Hong studies immune mechanisms of neuronal health and function. In particular, Soyon studies how microglia, the brain’s principal tissue-resident macrophages, communicate with other immune cells and glia to eliminate synapses in neurodegenerative diseases. Soyon received her PhD in Neuroscience from Harvard University and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Soyon started her independent laboratory in UK Dementia Research Institute at UCL in October 2018. She studied microglia biology with Thomas Möller (2002-2006), Alzheimer-type synapse pathology with Dennis Selkoe (2007-2012), and microglia-synapse pruning with Beth Stevens (2012-2018), where she identified microglia as synaptic saboteurs.