Rate My Professor Heng Du

Professor Heng Du serves as Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Kansas School of Pharmacy. He joined the department as Associate Professor in September 2020, following his tenure as Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he advanced from Assistant Professor in 2013. Earlier, from 2011 to 2013, Du held the position of Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and at KU's Higuchi Bioscience Research Center. His research program investigates the molecular and cellular mechanisms driving neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease, focusing on mitochondrial dysfunction, synaptic pathology, hormonal dysregulation such as the ghrelin system, and their contributions to hippocampal damage, cognitive impairment, and systemic dysmetabolism. Du's lab has produced seminal findings on mitochondrial permeability transition pore in brain aging and AD, mitochondria-sequestered amyloid-beta vulnerability in synaptic mitochondria, and the role of liver-expressed antimicrobial peptide 2 in neuroinflammation.

Du has obtained substantial federal funding, including an NIH R01 grant in 2024 totaling $2.93 million to examine ghrelin o-acyltransferase dysfunction in AD pathogenesis, and an earlier R01 on mtDNA leakage and STING-dependent microglial neuroinflammation in AD. Notable publications encompass "Vulnerability of mitochondrial OXPHOS complexes in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus of Alzheimer's disease" (J Alzheimers Dis, 2025), "Hippocampal transcriptome-wide association study and pathway analysis of mitochondrial solute carriers in Alzheimer's disease" (Transl Psychiatry, 2024), "Mitochondria-sequestered Aβ renders synaptic mitochondria vulnerable in the elderly with a risk of Alzheimer disease" (JCI Insight, 2023), "Liver-expressed antimicrobial peptide 2 elevation contributes to age-associated cognitive decline" (JCI Insight, 2023), and "Ghrelin system in Alzheimer's disease" (Curr Opin Neurobiol, 2023). His contributions bolster the university's prominence in AD research and advance therapeutic strategies for neurodegeneration.