Date: 8 October 2026 (Thursday)
Time: 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Venue: Mrs Chen Yang Foo Oi Telemedicine Centre, 2/F, William M.W. Mong Block, 21 Sassoon Road 
Host: Professor Cora Lai

Professor Vincenzo De Paola is a Visiting Professor at Imperial College London and a neuroscientist studying the mechanisms that shape human brain development, plasticity and disease. He trained in molecular and cellular neurobiology at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, completing his PhD with Pico Caroni, before undertaking postdoctoral research with Karel Svoboda at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as an EMBO Fellow. He established his independent research programme at Imperial College London in 2007 and subsequently led neuroscience research at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. His laboratory combines human genetics, single-cell multiomics, patient-derived neural models and humanised in vivo systems to investigate how disease-associated neural states arise and whether they can be reversed. His recent work on Down syndrome, published in Nature Medicine, identified dosage-sensitive regulatory networks underlying altered human brain development and is now informing the design of precision genetic therapeutic approaches.

The human brain undergoes prolonged development and maturation, yet remarkably little is known about how stable neural states remain once established. My research addresses two fundamental questions: to what extent can established states of human neurons and circuits be reprogrammed, and how does this plasticity change across development and ageing?

I will discuss our work on synaptic plasticity, axonal degeneration and regeneration in the mammalian brain, and how it motivated the development of humanised in vivo models to study the distinctive features of human neural biology. Combining these models with human genetics, single-cell genomics and functional perturbation, we have identified dosage-sensitive regulatory networks whose manipulation can redirect molecular and cellular phenotypes in human neurons.

Building on these findings, I will discuss how longitudinal human neuronal xenografts can be used to probe the mechanisms and limits of plasticity as human neurons mature and integrate into functional circuits in vivo. By linking molecular reprogramming to synaptic and circuit function, this work aims to uncover fundamental principles governing the stability and reversibility of human neural states, while providing a foundation for precision therapeutic approaches to neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders.

All are welcome.