Tien-Phat V. Huynh, M.D., Ph.D.

Research MD Fellow, Laboratory of X. William Yang 
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

UCLA Memory Clinic
Clinic Appts: (310) 794-1195 {Memory Evaluation}
Clinic Fax: (310) 794-7491

Biography

Dr. Tien-Phat (Phat) Huynh was born and raised in Nha Trang, a tropical paradise on the central coast of Vietnam. His immediate family moved to Orange County when he was 14, where he attended high school and dreamed of becoming an architect. However, the stark contrast in health disparities between the United States and his home country prompted him to look into a career in medicine where he thought he could make a greater impact. Dr. Huynh attended UCLA as an undergraduate with a major in Molecular biology and a minor in biomedical research, where he first discovered his love for the latter. 

As an undergraduate researcher, Dr. Huynh pursued several independent research projects to understand the role of protein misfolding in the context of Alzheimer’s disease under the mentorship of Dr. David Teplow. Dr. Huynh's continued interests in the field of neurodegeneration led him to attend the MD-PhD program at Washington University in St. Louis, where he completed a PhD thesis in the laboratory of David M. Holtzman, a world-renowned physician-scientist, and expert in Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Huynh’s graduate works examined the role of apolipoprotein E in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease and the potential of antisense oligonucleotides as therapeutic revenue for neurodegenerative diseases. 

As a proud Bruin, Dr. Huynh returned to southern California to join the neurology residency at UCLA. Following residency, he is staying at UCLA to pursue a combined clinical research fellowship in memory and dementia. To this end, Dr. Huynh was awarded the UE5 (formerly R25) training grant from the NINDS and will be investigating the role of astrocytes in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease under the mentorship of Dr. X. William Yang and Baljit Khakh. As a physician-scientist, Dr. Huynh hopes to develop a translational research program that allows him to utilize a multi-disciplinary approach to model and understand disease mechanisms, spanning across disciplines of cellular and systems neuroscience. In his spare time, you can find him shredding on the slopes at Big Bear or Mammoth in the Winter or falling off his surfboard at San Onofre in the Summer. He occasionally enjoys more mundane activities such as hiking, camping, and cooking (mostly Vietnamese food).

Specialty

Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and memory disorders.

Board Certifications

American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology

Medical Board of California

Affiliations

Physicians

Education and Degrees

B.Sc., Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology and minor in Biomedical Research, University of California, Los Angeles

MD, PhD, Combined Degree Program in Neuroscience, Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), Washington University in St. Louis, School of Medicine

Residency, Internal Medicine, University of California, Irvine Medical Center

Residency, Neurology, UCLA Medical Center

Publications

Litvinchuk, A., Huynh, T. V., Shi, Y., Jackson, R. J., Finn, M. B., Manis, M., Francis, C. M., Tran, A. C., Sullivan, P. M., Ulrich, J. D., Hyman, B. T., Cole, T. and Holtzman, D. M. Apolipoprotein E4 Reduction with Antisense Oligonucleotides Decreases Neurodegeneration in a Tauopathy Model. Annals of neurology, doi:10.1002/ana.26043 (2021)

Huynh, T.V.*, Wang*, C., Tran, A.S., Mahan T.E., Tabor, G.T., Francis, C.M., Finn, M.B., Spellman, R., Manis, M., Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ulrich, J.D., & Holtzman, D.M. Lack of hepatic apoE does not influence early Abeta deposition: observations from a new APOE knock-in model. Molecular neurodegeneration 14, 37, doi:10.1186/s13024-019-0337-1 (2019). *Equal contribution

Huynh, T. V. & Holtzman, D. M. Amyloid-beta 'seeds' in old vials of growth hormone. Nature 564, 354-355, doi:10.1038/d41586-018-07604-6 (2018).

Huynh, T. V. & Holtzman, D. M. In Search of an Identity for Amyloid Plaques. Trends in neurosciences 41, 483-486, doi:10.1016/j.tins.2018.06.002 (2018).

Huynh, T. V., Liao, F., Francis, C. M., Robinson, G. O., Serrano, J. R., Jiang, H., Roh, J., Finn, M. B., Sullivan, P. M., Esparza, T. J., Stewart, F. R., Mahan, T. E., Ulrich, J. D., Cole, T. & Holtzman, D. M. Age-Dependent Effects of apoE Reduction Using Antisense Oligonucleotides in a Model of beta-amyloidosis. Neuron 96, 1013-1023 e1014, doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2017.11.014 (2017).

Huynh, T. V., Cipriano, C. A., Hagemann, I. S. & Friedman, M. V. Osteolipoma of the knee. Radiology case reports 12, 124-129, doi:10.1016/j.radcr.2016.10.015 (2017).

Huynh, T. V., Davis, A. A., Ulrich, J. D. & Holtzman, D. M. Apolipoprotein E and Alzheimer's disease: the influence of apolipoprotein E on amyloid-beta and other amyloidogenic proteins. Journal of lipid research 58, 824-836, doi:10.1194/jlr.R075481 (2017). Featured on Journal Cover

Roychaudhuri, R., Huynh, T. V., Whitaker, T. R., Hodara, E., Condron, M. M. & Teplow, D. B. A Critical Role of Ser26 Hydrogen Bonding in Abeta42 Assembly and Toxicity. Biochemistry 56, 6321-6324, doi:10.1021/acs.biochem.7b00772 (2017).

Ulrich, J. D., Huynh, T. P. & Holtzman, D. M. Re-evaluation of the Blood-Brain Barrier in the Presence of Alzheimer's Disease Pathology. Neuron 88, 237-239, doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2015.10.008 (2015).

Yamin, G.*, Huynh, T. P.* & Teplow, D. B. Design and Characterization of Chemically Stabilized Abeta42 Oligomers. Biochemistry 54, 5315-5321, doi:10.1021/acs.biochem.5b00318 (2015). *Equal contribution

Book Chapter

David B. Teplow, Mingfeng Yang, Robin Roychaudhuri, Eric Pang, Tien-Phat Huynh, Mei-Sha Chen, Shiela Beroukhim. “Chapter 1. The amyloid β-protein and Alzheimer's disease,” in Alzheimer’s Disease: Targets for New Clinical Diagnostic and Therapeutic Strategies, Frontiers in Neuroscience Series, A. S. Rudolph and R. D. Wegrzyn (eds), CRC Press, 2012, Boca Raton, FL