Wei-Chen Chiu specialises in neuronal lipid metabolism: lipid droplet formation, fluorescence microscopy, image analysis, electron microscopy, fatty acid metabolism and lipid secretion pathways in neurons.
Wei-Chen’s research focuses on lipid metabolism and organelle dynamics in neuronal cells. Her current project investigates how disruption of fatty acid metabolism affects lipid droplet accumulation in human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons. Understanding how lipid droplets are formed, processed and potentially secreted from neurons may provide insight into how neuronal cells manage lipid imbalance and maintain cellular homeostasis.
Her project combines lipid staining, high-content fluorescence imaging, spinning-disk confocal microscopy, electron microscopy and quantitative image analysis to assess lipid droplet formation under different treatment conditions. This work aims to better understand the relationship between fatty acid metabolism, lipid droplet accumulation and neuronal lipid storage responses.
Wei-Chen is currently undertaking a Master of Biotechnology at the University of Queensland. Her research project is supervised by Dr Merja Joensuu and is based at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, with imaging-related work connected to the Queensland Brain Institute. She previously completed a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology in Taiwan, where she gained laboratory experience in cell culture, molecular biology and microbiology.