I am a final year DPhil (PhD) student at the Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics, in the Kavli Institute at the University of Oxford, UK. Originally from Australia, I began working on Alzheimer's disease in community canine models examining tau pathology with the Regenerative Neuroscience Group at the University of Sydney, before moving to the Wade-Martins lab at Oxford to examine selective neuronal vulnerability in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease using induced pluripotent stem cell models. I am broadly interested in brain aging and neurodegenerative disease and looking for further research positions!

Dr. Abisambra is an Associate Professor and Vice-Chair of Strategy for the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine. He also serves as Deputy Director of the Brain Injury, Rehabilitation, and Neuroresilience Center (BRAIN) and Assistant Dean of Health Care, Excellence, Community, and Belonging. Dr. Abisambra earned his PhD in molecular medicine and completed his post-doctoral training at the University of South Florida. The goal of his research program is to establish the molecular mechanisms linking the protein tau with cellular dysfunction, and especially, with RNA translation. His lab’s work established that pathological tau shifts ribosomal function into a maladaptive response. These events contribute to the pathogenesis of more than twenty tauopathies including Alzheimer's disease, fronto-temporal dementia with tau inclusions, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy/traumatic brain injury (CTE/TBI), which are central to the focus of his research. This work will help define effective therapeutic targets for more than 26 million people worldwide suffering from tauopathies.

Polina Abushik (b. 1987 Sankt-Petersburg) is a neurobiologist and doctor of philosophy who works as a postdoctoral researcher in Neurophysiology at the University of Eastern Finland. She is responsible for the patch-clamp unit in the neuroinflammation research group at the University of Eastern Finland's A.I. at the Virtanen Institute. The research group is investigating ways to regulate the brain's inflammatory response in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. Abushik graduated from the Sankt-Petersburg Polytechnical University with a master's degree in philosophy (applied physical-chemical biology, 2011) and the University of Eastern Finland with a doctorate in philosophy (neurobiology, 2016). Her dissertation in English (2016) dealt with excitotoxicity mechanisms related to neurodegenerative pathologies. The research work was titled The Mechanisms of Neurotoxicity Induced by the Activation of Glutamate Receptors in Rat Central and Peripheral Neurons. Since 2022, Abushik take part in the HUMANE project supported by the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant that focusing on the assess neuron-glia network activities and functions indicative of early AD pathology in humans.

Diana Acosta Ingram completed her Biomedical Engineering degree at Case Western Reserve University and Doctorate in Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College. Now as a post-doctoral scholar in Dr. Harry Fu’s lab at The Ohio State University, her project focuses on studying selective neuronal and regional vulnerability to tau pathology in neurodegenerative diseases and characterizing neural organoids to study tau spread and vulnerability in an innovative way.

Tamare is a third-year graduate student at the University of Florida and is currently the recipient of an NIH ADRD T32 fellowship. Her current research and clinical interests are in cross-cultural clinical neuropsychology, with a primary focus on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRDs). Specifically, she is interested in 1) developing a better understanding of the ways in which social determinants of health impact the onset and progression of ADRDs in minoritized populations and 2) investigating how health disparities impact quality of life and access to resources for lower-income aging adults with cognitive complaints.

I am a postdoc from Portugal, working in Clotilde Lagier-Tourenne's lab on neurodegenerative mechanisms of TDP-43 proteinopathies, including ALS, FTD, and Alzheimer’s disease. My drive to understand the brain at a molecular level led me to pursue a Biochemistry degree at the University of Coimbra (Portugal) and then Neurasmus, a multi-degree European master in Neuroscience. During my master's, I met Ruud Toonen and joined his team for my PhD at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, focusing on synaptic transmission mechanisms and hippocampal development. This deepened my neurobiology knowledge, fueling my excitement to apply these skills to disease research. I moved to Boston, joining Clotilde's lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School (USA), to investigate neurodegeneration in TDP-43 proteinopathies. My work concentrates on understanding how Stathmin-2, a crucial target of TDP-43, impacts neuronal function and its potential as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool. In my free time, I love traveling with my husband, attending concerts with my parents, playing board games with my siblings, exploring new restaurants with friends, and dancing with my son.