Vilas Menon

Dr. Vilas Menon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. He received his PhD in applied mathematics from Northwestern University, where he conducted experimental and computational research into the mechanisms by which neurons integrate synaptic information. Following his interest in neuroinformatics and computational biology, he spent 5 years at the Allen Institute for Brain Science conducting large-scale gene expression analysis, specializing in methods for single-cell RNA-sequencing data interpretation, an emerging field at the time. At Columbia, his group focuses on cell type dysregulation in neurodegenerative disease, with a special emphasis on signatures of resistance to neuropathology. Their work combines single-cell and bulk multiomics approaches with new computational methods. His work is funded through the National Institute on Aging, as well as a series of private institutions.