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 was welcomed to the department as Associate Professor in September 2020. Prior to this appointment, Du held the position of Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, having been promoted from Assistant Professor there starting in 2013. Earlier in his career, from 2011 to 2013, he was Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and the Higuchi Bioscience Research Center at the University of Kansas. In 2023, he received promotion and tenure. His expertise lies in elucidating the mechanisms of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease to develop novel therapeutics, with a focus on synaptic mitochondrial alterations and their contributions to synaptic degeneration.

Du’s research investigates mitochondrial dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease, including vulnerabilities in oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) complexes, the role of ghrelin o-acyltransferase (GOAT) dysfunction in hippocampal damage and systemic dysmetabolism, elevated ghrelin promoting hippocampal receptor expression, and mitochondria-sequestered amyloid-beta rendering synaptic mitochondria vulnerable. He has secured major funding through National Institutes of Health R01 grants, including one in 2022 and a $2.93 million award in 2024 for GOAT-related studies in Alzheimer’s disease. Key publications include “Synaptic Mitochondrial Pathology in Alzheimer’s Disease” (2012), “Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Synaptic Transmission Failure in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease” (2017), “Disrupted Hippocampal Growth Hormone Secretagogue Receptor/Acyl Ghrelin Axis in Alzheimer’s Disease” (2019), “Mitochondria-Sequestered Aβ Renders Synaptic Mitochondria Vulnerable in Alzheimer’s Disease” (2023), “Elevated Ghrelin Promotes Hippocampal Ghrelin Receptor Expression and Synaptic Mitochondrial Alterations in Alzheimer’s Disease” (2023), and “Vulnerability of Mitochondrial OXPHOS Complexes in Alzheimer’s Disease” (2025). Du’s lab mentors graduate students, undergraduates, and postdoctoral researchers, and he contributes to neuroscience seminars on synaptic mitochondrial alterations in Alzheimer’s disease.