MD students

Julian Alecu

MD student

Department of Stem Cell Biology
AG Winner

• Email: julian.alecu@fau.de
• Website: http://www.stammzellbiologie.uk-erlangen.de/en/

Project Title: Reducing α-synuclein oligomers as an approach to rescue cell death of iPSC-derived midbrain neurons from patients with Parkinson’s disease

Publications:

Saffari A, Schröter J, Garbade SF, Alecu JE, Ebrahimi-Fakhari D, Hoffmann GF, Kölker S, Ries M, Syrbe S (2021) Quantitative retrospective natural history modeling of WDR45-related developmental and epileptic encephalopathy – a systematic cross-sectional analysis of 160 published cases. Autophagy.  doi: 10.1080/15548627.2021.1990671.

Ebrahimi-Fakhari D, Alecu JE, Ziegler M, Geisel G, Jordan C, D’Amore A, Yeh RC, Akula SK, Saffari A, Prabhu SP, Sahin M, Yang E (2021) International AP-4-HSP Registry and Natural History Study. Systematic Analysis of Brain MRI Findings in Adaptor Protein Complex 4-Associated Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia. Neurology.;97(19):e1942-e1954. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000012836. 

Ebrahimi-Fakhari D, Alecu JE, Brechmann B, Ziegler M, Eberhardt K, Jumo H, D’Amore A, Habibzadeh P, Faghihi MA, De Bleecker JL, Vuillaumier-Barrot S, Auvin S, Santorelli FM, Neuser S, Popp B, Yang E, Barrett L, Davies AK, Saffari A, Hirst J, Sahin M (2021) High-throughput imaging of ATG9A distribution as a diagnostic functional assay for adaptor protein complex 4-associated hereditary spastic paraplegia. Brain Commun. 2021 Sep 25;3(4):fcab221. doi: 10.1093/braincomms/fcab221. 

Jordan C, Geisel G, Alecu JE, Zhang B, Sahin M, Ebrahimi-Fakhari D (2021) Disease Severity and Motor Impairment Correlate With Health-Related Quality of Life in AP-4-AssociatedHereditary Spastic Paraplegia. Neurol Genet. 7(4):e605. doi: 10.1212/NXG.0000000000000605. 

Ebrahimi-Fakhari D, Alecu JE, Blackstone C. Spastic Paraplegia 15. 2021 May 27. In: Adam MP, Ardinger HH, Pagon RA, Wallace SE, Bean LJH, Mirzaa G, Amemiya A, editors. GeneReviews®[Internet]. Seattle (WA): University of Washington, Seattle; 1993–2021. PMID: 34057829.

Eberhardt K, Jumo H, D’Amore A, Alecu JE, Ziegler M, Afshar Saber W, Sahin M, Ebrahimi-Fakhari D. Generation and characterization of six human induced pluripotent stem cell lines (iPSC) from three families with AP4M1-associated hereditary spastic paraplegia (SPG50). Stem Cell Res. 2021 May;53:102335. doi: 10.1016/j.scr.2021.102335. Epub 2021 Apr 16. PMID: 34087981

Simmnacher K, Krach F, Schneider Y, Alecu JE, Mautner L, Klein P, Roybon L, Prots I, Xiang W, Winner B (2020) Unique signatures of stress-induced senescent human astrocytes. Exp Neurol 334:113466.doi: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2020.113466.

Brazdis RM, Alecu J, Marsch D, Dahms A, Simmnacher K, Lorentz S, Brendler A, Schneider Y, Marxreiter F, Roybon L, Winner B, Xiang W, Prots I (2020) Demonstration of brain region-specific neuronal vulnerability in human iPSC-based model of familial Parkinson’s disease. Hum Mol Genet pii: ddaa039. doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddaa039

Monica Bieg

MD student

Department of Molecular Neurology
Prof. Winkler

• Email: monica.bieg@extern.uk-erlangen.de
• Website: http://www.molekulare-neurologie.uk-erlangen.de/

Project Title: Activation of myeloid cells in a transgenic mouse model of Huntington’s Disease

Charlotte Billmann

MD student

Institute of Biochemistry
Prof. Lie

• Email: charlotte.billlmann@fau.de
• Website: https://www.biochemie.med.fau.de/research/ag-lie-en/

Project Title: Activity pattern of canonical Wnt signaling in the postnatal dentate gyrus and expression and role of R-spondin2 in its initiation

Publications:

Heppt J, Wittmann MT, Schäffner I, Billmann C, Zhang J, Vogt-Weisenhorn D, Prakash N, Wurst W, Taketo MM, Lie DC (2020) beta-catenin signaling modulates the tempo of dendritic growth of adult-born hippocampal neurons. EMBO J:e104472.doi: 10.15252/embj.2020104472.

Lia Birschmann

MD Student

Institute of Biochemistry
AG Karow

• Website: https://www.biochemie.med.fau.de/forschung/ag-karow/

Project Title: Studying MID1-mediated microtubule alterations as the underlying cause for aberrant NSC decisions using Opitz G/BBB patient human brain organoids

Timea Gion

MD Student

Institute of Biochemistry
AG Lie

• Email: timea.gion@fau.de
• Website: https://www.biochemie.med.fau.de/research/ag-lie-en

Project Title: The impact of Sox11 haploinsufficiency on interneuron development

Fabienne Grolig

MD student

Institute of Biochemistry
AG Lie

• Email: fabienne.grolig@fau.de
• Website: https://www.biochemie.med.fau.de/research/ag-lie-en

Project Title: Investigating the role of FoxO transcription factors in the maintenance of mitochondrial homeostasis in adult neural stem/progenitor cells

Lara Hammad

MD student

Department of Molecular Neurology
Prof. Winkler

• Email: lara.hammad@uk-erlangen.de
• Website: http://www.molekulare-neurologie.uk-erlangen.de/

Project Title: The serotonergic innervation of the hippocampus in a transgenic ASM model

Publications:

Kalinichenko LS, Hammad L, Reichel M, Kohl Z, Gulbins E, Kornhuber J, Müller CP. Acid sphingomyelinase controls dopamine activity and responses to appetitive stimuli in mice.Brain Res Bull. 2019 Mar;146:310-319. doi: 10.1016/j.brainresbull.2019.01.026. Epub 2019 Feb 1.

Felicia Himmelsbach

MD student

Department of Stem Cell Biology
AG Winner

• Website: http://www.stammzellbiologie.uk-erlangen.de/en/

Project Title: α-synuclein expression and its regulation in lymphocyte subsets

Verena Hundrup

MD student

Lehrstuhl für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie
AG Fejtová

• Website: https://fejtovalab.com/

Project Title: Functional maturation of neuronal networks in Noonan Syndrome

Julian Karpf

MD student

Insitute of Biochemisty
AG Beckervordersandforth

• Email: julian.karpf@fau.de
• Website: https://www.biochemie.med.fau.de/research/ag-beckervordersandforth-en/

Project Title: Astrocyte heterogeneity in the adult murine dentate gyrus of the hippocampus

Publications:

Karpf J, Unichenko P, Chalmers N, Beyer F, Wittmann MT, Schneider J, Fidan E, Reis A, Beckervordersandforth J, Brandner S, Liebner S, Falk S, Sagner A, Henneberger C, Beckervordersandforth R (2022) Dentate gyrus astrocytes exhibit layer-specific molecular, morphological and physiological features. Nature Neuroscience, 2022 (in press). doi10.1038/s41593-022-01192-5

Schneider J, Karpf J, Beckervordersandforth R (2019) Role of Astrocytes in the Neurogenic Niches. Methods Mol Biol 1938: 19-33. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-9068-9_2

Edwina Keck

MD Student

Institute of Biochemistry
Dr. Iris Schäffner

• Website: https://www.biochemie.med.fau.de/research/ag-lie-en/

Project Title: Role of FoxO-signaling in postnatal establishment of the adult neural stem cell pool

David Neubauer

Department of Stem Cell Biology
AG Winner/ Dr. Regensburger

• Email: david.neubauer@fau.de
• Website: http://www.stammzellbiologie.uk-erlangen.de/en/

Project Title: Neuronal iPSC-Model of SPG7-related Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia

Antonia Schmidt

Graduate Student

Institute of Biochemistry
Prof. Wegner

• Email: antonia.luna.schmidt@fau.de
• Website: https://www.biochemie.med.fau.de/research/ag-wegner-en/

Project Title: Investigating Gpr37 as a potential target gene of Nkx2.2 and Zfp488 during oligodendrocyte differentiation

Caroline Swoboda

Psychiatrische und Psychotherapeutische Klinik
AG Kornhuber

• Website: https://www.psychiatrie.uk-erlangen.de/forschung/

Project Title: Identification of biomarkers in depression