ShanghaiTech University ShanghaiTech University Margaret S. Ho received her B.A. in Molecular and Cellular Biology & Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, CA, and her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Harvard University. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Academica Sinica Institute of Molecular Biology in Taiwan and then joined the faculty of Tongji University School of Medicine in Shanghai, China. In 2017, Margaret became Associate Professor and PI at ShanghaiTech School of Life Sciences and Technology, where the Ho lab uses Drosophila as a model system to investigate the mechanisms of nervous system development and function, particularly in glial cells. Bearing resemblance in many ways to mammalian glia, Drosophila glia are comprised of a variety of morphological classes and exhibit similar functions to their mammalian counterparts. Glial cells are the most abundant cell types in the nervous system, and participate in virtually all aspects of brain function. Dysfunction in glial cells causes serious and significant pathology that leads to multiple brain diseases. Previous work from the Ho laboratory elucidated a distinct pathway, ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation, that regulates embryonic glial cell development. Extending from this work, the Ho lab is now interested in topics including 1. Neuronalglia interaction and its physiological relevance in neuronal development and synaptic function, and 2. Glial cell function in behavior, and its implications for neurodegenerative diseases.