As an endocrinologist and geriatrician, I have received extensive training in both patient care and basic research. Before I moved to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the NIH as a postdoctoral fellow in 2001, I had spent 10 years as a practicing endocrinologist and geriatrician while also conducting diabetes research in China. During my research fellowship at the NIH, I investigated the roles of growth factors and tumor suppressors in cancer development and their potential mechanistic links to type 2 diabetes. Since 2005, as a faculty member of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University, I have focused on sex steroid hormone-related aspects of human physiology and disease using a variety of methods and techniques, including cell lines, human specimens, and various novel transgenic mouse models. I have extensive research experience in aromatase and estrogen-related disorders such as abnormal sexual behaviors and skeletal muscle fibrosis in males, and pelvic floor disorders in women, as well as mouse genetics and biology. Recently, my research has focused on estrogen signaling in brain function and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and has been awarded an RF1 grant from NIA/NIH to support my study. In this grant, we will explore the mechanistic link between aromatase deletion and estrogen deficiency in the brain and whole body and sex-specific astrocyte reactivity, neurodegeneration, memory loss, and AD vulnerability in women using both transgenic and knockout mouse models and postmortem brain tissues from men and women with AD.