Dr. LR Zhao is a distinguished neuroscientist and professor at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University, with appointments in the Departments of Neurosurgery and Neuroscience & Physiology. He received his M.D. from Hebei Medical College and completed his Ph.D. at Lund University, focusing on neural stem cells, brain plasticity, and neurobiology. His postdoctoral work at the University of Minnesota explored the role of bone marrow stem cells in brain repair. Dr. Zhao’s research career spans multiple institutions, including Northwestern University and Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, where he progressed from Research Assistant Professor to Associate Professor. His work primarily investigates mechanisms underlying brain repair and regeneration, with emphasis on traumatic brain injury, enriched environment interventions, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and CADASIL. He has successfully secured multiple NIH-funded grants, including R01 and R56 awards, totaling several million dollars, and has mentored numerous medical students through summer and research fellowship programs. Dr. Zhao has published 66 peer-reviewed documents, which have been cited 3,238 times by 2,814 documents, yielding an h-index of 27. His contributions have advanced understanding of hematopoietic growth factors in neurorepair, SCF+G-CSF-mediated recovery in chronic TBI, and the cellular mechanisms regulating neurodegeneration and regeneration, establishing him as a leader in translational neuroscience research.