Gallagher Lab

Arizona State University

ASU-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center

What we do

We study how genes and gene regulation impact brain cells to cause neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and multiple sclerosis.

To do this, we combine multiple approaches and technologies, including:

  • Human stem cell (iPSC)-based models of neuronal and glial cells, and brain organoids

  • CRISPR-based genome and epigenome editing, including single cell CRISPR screens

  • Development of transgenic tools to manipulate genes and pathways in iPSC-derived tissues

Who we are

Mike received his Ph.D. in Cell & Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania, and did his postdoctoral work at the Whitehead Institute of MIT, under the co-mentorship of Rudolf Jaenisch and Richard Young. He has received an NIH F31 pre-doctoral fellowship, an NIH F32 post-doctoral fellowship, an Alzheimer’s Association postdoctoral fellowship, and was awarded the Trainee Spotlight Award from the American Society for Human Genetics.

Mike Gallagher, Principal Investigator

Assistant Professor, Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-gallagher-a2a85828/?isSelfProfile=true

Google Scholar:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BIUDa94AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

X:

https://x.com/GeneticsMike7

Bluesky:

https://bsky.app/profile/geneticsmike7.bsky.social

We are hiring at all levels, including grad students, postdocs, technicians, undergrads, and lab manager (please contact at mdgalla5@asu.edu)

Our Research - coming soon!

Publications

  1. Carceles-Cordon M, Brody EM, Boucher ML, Gallagher MD, Skrinak RT, Unger TL, Penner CK, Berndt AJ, Das S, Lam K, Jaenisch R, Van Deerlin VM, Lee EB, Brunden K, Luk KC, Chen-Plotkin AS. (2026). Secreted GPNMB enhances uptake of fibrillar α-synuclein in a non-cell-autonomous process than can be blocked by anti-GPNMB antibodies. Neuron 114(18):3418-3431.

  2. Rico V, Zelinsky M, Ford PJ, Leverenz J, Pillai JA, Miller JB, Martinez K, Lerner AJ, Tousi B, Apostolova LG, Arias JJ, Bolton CJ, Brewer AA, Bridgeman K, Burns JM, Butler T, Dierickx K, Erickson CM, Festari C, Fitri FI, Fowler NR, Gale SA, Gao C, Gallagher MD, Johnson KG, Morris JK, Porteri C, Qiu C, Rahman-Filipiak A, Rahemi Z, Richard E, Schaeverbeke J, Stern Y, Suver C, Trenaman S, Blasi MT, Vandenberghe R, Walter S, Williams K, Sankary LR. (2025). Recommended approaches to sharing individual research results in Alzheimer’s disease research: A multidisciplinary expert Delphi consensus. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease 108(2):703-718.

  3. Gallagher MD*#, Khalil AS*, Liu Q, Lungjangwa T, Drews A, Hanan BF, List M, Hardart H, Mooney DJ#, Jaenisch R#. (2025). Systematic characterization of existing and novel inducible transgenic systems in human pluripotent stem cells after prolonged differentiation. bioRxiv doi:10.1101/2025.10.17.683097; In revision. *co-first authors; #co-corresponding authors

  4. Gallagher MD*#, Luna XL*, Du W, Hazel KEA, List M, Aydin Z, Stapleton O, Cheng Y, Yuan B, Saunders RA, Viswanathan K, Madden M, Weissman JS, Keys HR, Bell GW, Malhotra D, Jaenisch R#, Corradin O#. (2025). Functional genomic dissection of multiple sclerosis risk loci reveals convergence of cis and trans gene regulatory mechanisms in microglia. medRxiv doi:10.1101/2025.06.16.25329681; In revision. *co-first authors; #co-corresponding authors

  5. Kirsch M, Yuan B, Chen W, Osaki T, Fu D, Garrett-Engele CM, Svoboda DS, Andrykovich KR, Gallagher MD, Sur M, Jaenisch R (2025). The A53T mutation in α-synuclein enhances pro-inflammatory activation in human microglia upon inflammatory stimulus. Biological Psychiatry 97(7):730-742.

  6. Cruite K, Moore M, Gallagher MD, Coleman EM, Yin Y, Lin S, Shahbo E, Lin S, Lungjangwa T, Hovestadt V, Jaenisch R, Maguire J, Tang X. (2024). Pharmacological inhibition of Fms-like kinase (FLT3) signaling promotes neuronal functional maturation and suppresses seizure. bioRxiv doi:10.1101/2024.10.02.616380; Accepted, Molecular Therapy

  7. Bisht P, Gallagher MD, Barrasa MI, Boucau J, Harding A, Déjosez M, Godoy-Parejo C, Bisher ME, de Nola G, Lytton-Jean AKR, Gehrke L, Zwaka TP, Jaenisch R. (2024). Abortive infection of bat fibroblasts with SARS-CoV-2. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 121(43):e2406773121.

  8. Díaz-Ortíz ME, Jain N, Gallagher MD, Posavi M, Unger TL, Chen-Plotkin AS. (2023). Testing for Allele-specific expression from Human Brain Samples. Bio-Protocol 13(19):e4832.

  9. Díaz-Ortíz ME, Seo Y, Posavi M, Cordon MC, Clark E, Jain N, Charan R, Gallagher MD, Unger TL, Amari N, Skrinak RT, Davila-Rivera R, Brody EM, Han N, Zack R, Van Deerlin VM, Tropea TF, Luk KC, Lee EB, Weintraub D, Chen-Plotkin AS. (2022). GPNMB confers risk for Parkinson’s disease through interaction with α-synuclein. Science 377(6608):eabk0637

  10. Factor DC, Barbeau AM, Allan K, Hu L, Madhavan M, Hoang AT, Hazel KEA, Hall PA, Nisraiyaa S, Najm FJ, Miller TE, Nevin ZS, Karl RT, Lima BR, Song Y, Sibert AG, Dhillon GK, Volsko C, Bartels CF, Adams DJ, Dutta R, Gallagher MD, Phu W, Kozlenkov A, Dracheva S, Scacheri PC, Tesar PJ, Corradin O. (2020). Cell type specificity of intralocus interactions reveals oligodendrocyte intrinsic mechanisms for multiple sclerosis. Cell 181(2):382-395.e21.

  11. Gallagher MD and Chen-Plotkin AS. (2018). The Post-GWAS era: from association to function. The American Journal of Human Genetics 102(5):717-730.

  12. Cooper CA, Jain N, Gallagher MD, Weintraub D, Xie SX, Berlyand Y, Espay AJ, Quinn J, Edwards KL, Montine T, Van Deerlin VM, Trojanowski J, Zabetian CP, Chen-Plotkin AS. (2017). Common variant rs356182 near SNCA defines a Parkinson’s disease endophenotype. Annals of Clinical & Translational Neurology 4(1):15-25.

  13. Gallagher MD, Posavi M, Huang P, Unger TL, Berlyand Y, Gruenwald AL, Chesi A, Manduchi E, Wells AD, Grant SFA, Blobel GA, Brown CD, Chen-Plotkin AS. (2017). A dementia-associated risk variant near TMEM106B alters chromatin architecture and gene expression. The American Journal of Human Genetics 101(5):643-663.

  14. Swanson CR, Li K, Unger TL, Gallagher MD, Van Deerlin VM, Agarwal P, Leverenz J, Roberts J, Samii A, Goldmann Gross R, Hurtig H, Rick J, Weintraub D, Trojanowski JQ, Zabetian C, Chen-Plotkin AS. (2015). ApoA1 levels correlate with APOA1 genotype and affect Parkinson’s disease risk. Movement Disorders 30(6):805-812.

  15. Gallagher MD, Suh E, Grossman M, Elman L, McCluskey L, Van Swieten JC, Al-Sarraj S, Neumann M, Gelpi E, Gheti B, Rohrer JD, Halliday G, Van Broeckhoven C, Seilhean D, Shaw PJ, Frosch MP, International Collaboration for Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration, Trojanowski JQ, Lee VM, Van Deerlin V, Chen-Plotkin AS. (2014). TMEM106B is a genetic modifier of frontotemporal lobar degeneration with C9orf72 hexanucleotide repeat expansions. Acta Neuropathologica 127(3):407-418.

  16. Kague E*, Gallagher M*, Burke S, Parsons M, Franz-Odendaal, Fisher S. (2012). Skeletogenic fate of zebrafish cranial and trunk neural crest. PLOS ONE 7(11):e47394. *co-first authors

  17. Chen-Plotkin AS, Unger TL, Gallagher MD, Bill E, Kwong LK, Volpicelli-Daley L, Busch JI, Akle S, Grossman M, Van Deerlin V, Trojanowski JQ, Lee VM. (2012). TMEM106B, the risk gene for frontotemporal dementia, is regulated by the microRNA-132/212 cluster and affects progranulin pathways. Journal of Neuroscience 32(33):11213-11227.