Meet the EDDU Team

Originally from Dublin, Ireland, I have been at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (The Neuro) for over 15 years and this place has become like a second home to me. As an Associate Professor at The Neuro and McGill University (ResearchFest Platform Pitch), my research focus is on applying patient-derived stem cells towards the development of phenotypic discovery assays and 3D organoid models (Brains on a Dish: Revolutionizing Parkinson’s Disease research with brain organoids) for both neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. As director of the Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU) at The Neuro, I oversee a team of over 30 research staff and students, committed to applying novel stem cell technology, combined with CRISPR genome editing, organoid models and new microfluidic technologies towards elucidating the underlying causes of these complex disorders. Combined with new approaches in the group towards building MultiOmics profiles on the patient-derived IPSC cells, the long-term strategy is to identify new personalized precision therapies that can be applied towards building clinical trials on a dish.

URL to list of published work (Durcan TM / Durcan T; 69 publications 2007-2023): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=durcan+t&filter=years.2007-2023 

1. Mohamed N-V, Mathur M, Da Silva RV, Beitel LK, Fon EA, Durcan TM. Generation of human minibrain organoids from induced pluripotent stem cells MNI Open Research. 2021. https://doi.org/10.12688/mniopenres.12816.1 
2. Chen X-Q, Abdian N, Maussion G, Thomas RA, Demirova I, Cai E, Beitel L, Fon EA, Durcan TM. A Multistep Workflow to Evaluate Newly Generated iPSCs and Their Ability to Generate Different Cell Types. Methods Protoc. 2021. Jul 19;4(3):50. doi: 10.3390/mps4030050. 
3. Mohamed N-V, Sirois J, Ramamurthy J, Mathur M, Lépine P, Deneault E, Maussion G, Nicouleau M, Chen X-Q, Abdian N, Cai E, Nami H, Thomas RA, Tabatabaei M, Beitel LK, Karamchandani J, Kunath T, Fon EA and Durcan TM. Elevated synuclein levels in Midbrain organoids drive the formation of synuclein aggregates. Brain Communications. 2021. Sep 25;3(4): fcab223. doi: 10.1093/braincomms/fcab223. 
4. Maussion G, Thomas RA, Demirova I, Cai E, Gu G, Chen X-Q, Abdian N, Nauleau-Javaudin A, Ramoz N, Gorwood P and Durcan TM. Auto-QPCR: A Python based web app for the reproducible analysis of qPCR data. Sci Rep. 2021. Oct 29;11(1):21293. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-99727-6. 
5. Cassel de Camps C, Aslani S, Stylianesis N, Nami H, Mohamed NV, Durcan TM, Moraes C. Hydrogel Mechanics Influence the Growth and Development of Embedded Brain Organoids. ACS Appl Bio Mater. 2022 Jan 17;5(1):214-224. doi: 10.1021/acsabm.1c01047. 
6. Soubannier V, Chaineau M, Gursu L, Haghi G, Flores AKF, Rouleau G, Durcan TM, Stefano Stifani. Rapid generation of ventral spinal cord-like astrocytes from human iPSCs for modeling non-cell autonomous mechanisms of lower motor neuron disease. Cells 2022, 11, 399. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells11030399 
7. Hettige NC, Peng H, Wu H, Zhang X, Yerko V, Zhang Y, Jefri M, Soubannier V, Maussion G, Alsuwaidi S, Ni A, Rocha C, Krishnan J, McCarty V, Antonyan L, Schuppert A, Turecki G, Fon EA, Durcan TM, Ernst C. FOXG1 dose tunes cell proliferation dynamics in human forebrain progenitor cells. Stem Cell Reports. 2022 Mar 8;17(3):475-488. doi: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2022.01.010. Epub 2022 Feb 10. 
8. Duchesne A, Dong J, Bayne AN, Mohamed N-V, Yi W, Mathur M, Fon EA, Durcan TM, Jean-François Trempe. An Approach to Measuring Protein Turnover in Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Organoids by Mass Spectrometry. Methods. 2022 Jul;203:17-27. doi: 10.1016/j.ymeth.2022.03.011. Epub 2022 Mar 21.  
9. Mohamed NV, Lépine P, Lacalle-Aurioles M, Sirois J, Mathur M, Reintsch W, Beitel LK, Fon EA, Durcan TM. Microfabricated disk technology: Rapid scale up in midbrain organoid generation. Methods. 2022 Jul;203:465-477. doi: 10.1016/j.ymeth.2021.07.008. 
10. Deneault E, Chaineau M, Nicouleau M, Castellanos Montiel MJ, Franco Flores AK, Haghi G, Chen CX, Abdian N, Shlaifer I, Beitel LK, Durcan TM. A streamlined CRISPR workflow to introduce mutations and generate isogenic iPSCs for modeling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Methods. 2022 Jul;203:297-310. doi: 10.1016/j.ymeth.2021.09.002. 
11. Chen CX, You Z, Abdian N, Sirois J, Shlaifer I, Tabatabaei M, Boivin MN, Gaborieau L, Karamchandani J, Beitel LK, Fon EA, Durcan TM. Generation of homozygous PRKN, PINK1 and double PINK1/PRKN knockout cell lines from healthy induced pluripotent stem cells using CRISPR/Cas9 editing. Stem Cell Res. 2022 Jul;62:102806. doi: 10.1016/j.scr.2022.102806. 
12. Bayati A, Banks E, Han C, Luo W, Reintsch WE, Zorca CE, Shlaifer I, Del Cid Pellitero E, Vanderperre B, McBride HM, Fon EA, Durcan TM, McPherson PS. Rapid macropinocytic transfer of α-synuclein to lysosomes. Cell Rep. 2022 Jul 19;40(3):111102. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111102. 
13. Dorion MF, Yaqubi M, Murdoch HJ, Hall JA, Dudley R, Antel JP, Durcan TM, Healy LM. Systematic comparison of culture media uncovers phenotypic shift of primary human microglia defined by reduced reliance to CSF1R signaling. Glia. 2023 Jan 21. doi: 10.1002/glia.24338. 
14. Castellanos-Montiel MJ, Chaineau M, Franco-Flores AK, Haghi G, Carrillo-Valenzuela D, Reintsch WE, Chen CX-Q, Durcan TM. An Optimized Workflow to Generate and Characterize iPSC-Derived Motor Neuron (MN) Spheroids. Cells. 2023; 12(4):545. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells12040545 
15. Cassel de Camps C, Mok S, Ashby E, Li C, Lépine P, Durcan TM, Moraes C. Compressive molding of engineered tissues via thermoresponsive hydrogel devices. Lab Chip. 2023 Mar 14. doi: 10.1039/d3lc00007a. 
16. Marie-France Dorion, Moein Yaqubi, Konstantin Senkevich, Nicholas W Kieran, Adam MacDonald, Carol X -Q Chen, Wen Luo, Amber Wallis, Irina Shlaifer, Jeffery A Hall, Roy W R Dudley, Ian A Glass, Birth Defects Research Laboratory, Jo Anne Stratton, Edward Fon, Tim Bartels, Jack P Antel, Ziv Gan-or, Thomas M Durcan, Luke M Healy, MerTK is a mediator of alpha-synuclein fibril uptake by human microglia, Brain, 2023;, awad298, https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awad298

1. Homozygous ALS-linked mutations in TARDBP/TDP-43 lead to progressive synaptic dysfunction in human iPSC-derived motor neurons. Sarah Lépine, Angela Nauleau-Javaudin, Eric Deneault, Carol X.-Q. Chen, Narges Abdian, Anna Krystina Franco-Flores, Ghazal Haghi, María José Castellanos-Montiel, Gilles Maussion, Mathilde Chaineau, Thomas M. Durcan. bioRxiv 2023.03.22.533562; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.03.22.533562
2. α-synuclein preformed fibrils bind to β-neurexins and impair β-neurexin-mediated presynaptic organization. Benjamin Feller, Aurélie Fallon, Wen Luo, Phuong Trang Nguyen, Irina Shlaifer, Alfred Kihoon Lee, Samer Karkout, Steve Bourgault, Thomas M Durcan, Hideto Takahashi. bioRxiv 2023.01.28.526024; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.01.28.526024
3. Genetic inactivation of the USP19 deubiquitinase regulates a-synuclein ubiquitination and inhibits accumulation of Lewy body like aggregates in mice. Lenka Schorova, Nathalie Bedard, Anouar Khayachi, Joao Bolivar-Pedroso, Hung-Hsiang Ho, Julie Huynh, Mikaela Piccirelli, Yifei Wang, Marie Plourde, Wen Luo, Esther del Cid-Pellitero, Irina Shlaifer, Yihong Ye, Thomas M. Durcan, Simon S. Wing. bioRxiv 2022.12.21.521125; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.12.21.521125
4. CelltypeR: A framework to identify and characterize cell types in human midbrain organoids using flow cytometry. Rhalena A. Thomas, Julien M. Sirois, Shuming Li, Alex Gestin, Valerio E. Piscopo, PaulaLépine, Meghna Mathur, Carol X.Q. Chen, Vincent Soubannier, Taylor M. Goldsmith, Lama Fawaz, Thomas M. Durcan, Edward A. Fon. bioRxiv 2022.11.11.516066; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.11.11.516066
5. Presymptomatic neuroanatomical and cognitive biomarkers of alpha-synuclein propagation in a mouse model of synucleinopathy. Stephanie Tullo, Aline S Miranda, Esther del Cid-Pellitero, Mei Peng Lim, Daniel Gallino, Anoosha Attaran, Raihaan Patel, Vladislav Novikov, Megan Park, Flavio H.Beraldo, Wen Luo, Irina Shlaifer, Thomas M. Durcan, Timothy J. Bussey, Lisa M.Saksida, Edward A. Fon, Vania F. Prado, Marco A.M. Prado, M. Mallar Chakravarty. bioRxiv 2022.10.12.511820; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.10.12.511820
6. Transcriptional dysregulation and impaired neuronal activity in FMR1 knock-out and Fragile X patients’ iPSC-derived models. Gilles Maussion, Cecilia Rocha, Narges Abdian, Dimitri Yang, Julien Turk, Dulce Carrillo Valenzuela, Luisa Pimentel, Zhipeng You, Barbara Morquette, Michael Nicouleau, Eric Deneault, Samuel Higgins, Carol X.-Q. Chen, Wolfgang Reintsch, Ho Stanley, Vincent Soubannier, Sarah Lépine, Zora Modrusan, Jessica Lund, William Stephenson, Rajib Schubert, Thomas M. Durcan. bioRxiv 2023.08.30.554628; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.08.30.554628

Dr. Edward Fon, MD, FRCP(C) is a neurologist and scientist at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (The Neuro). He is a Professor at McGill University, a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Parkinson’s Disease, and Director of the McGill Parkinson Program, a national Parkinson Foundation Centre of Excellence. His research focuses on the molecular events leading to the neuronal degeneration in Parkinson's disease (PD). In the past decade, a number of genes have been identified that cause familial forms of the disease. He is particularly interested in how these genes come together and interact to cause PD. Dr. Fon’s work in this area could provide important clues about the mechanisms of neuronal death in Parkinson’s disease and potentially lead to innovative new therapeutic strategies. Dr. Fon is currently the Director of the FRQS - Quebec Parkinson’s Network (QPN) and Co-Director of the Parkinson Canada/Brain Canada – Canadian Open Parkinson Network (C-OPN). He has received several awards during the course of his career such as CIHR Clinician-Scientist, FRQS National Scholar and FRSQ Chercheur-Boursier (Senior) awards and the Prix de Jeune Chercheur Blaise Pascal. Dr. Fon’s research is supported by the CIHR (Foundation grant), CQDM, Brain Canada, Parkinson Canada, CCNA and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

1. Chen, C. X., You, Z., Abdian, N., Sirois, J., Shlaifer, I., Tabatabaei, M., Boivin, M. N., Gaborieau, L., Karamchandani, J., Beitel, L. K., Fon, E. A., Durcan, T. M. (2022). Generation of homozygous PRKN, PINK1 and double PINK1/PRKN knockout cell lines from healthy induced pluripotent stem cells using CRISPR/Cas9 editing. Stem cell research, 62, 102806. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scr.2022.102806
2. Dong, J., Duchesne, A., Bayne, A. N., Mohamed, N. V., Yi, W., Mathur, M., Chen, C., You, Z., Abdian, N., Taylor, L., Fon, E. A., Durcan, T. M., & Trempe, J. F. (2022). An approach to measuring protein turnover in human induced pluripotent stem cell organoids by mass spectrometry. Methods (San Diego, Calif.), S1046-2023(22)00078-0. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymeth.2022.03.011
3. Hettige, N. C., Peng, H., Wu, H., Zhang, X., Yerko, V., Zhang, Y., Jefri, M., Soubannier, V., Maussion, G., Alsuwaidi, S., Ni, A., Rocha, C., Krishnan, J., McCarty, V., Antonyan, L., Schuppert, A., Turecki, G., Fon, E. A., Durcan, T. M., & Ernst, C. (2022). Foxg1 dose tunes cell proliferation dynamics in human forebrain progenitor cells. Stem Cell Reports. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stemcr.2022.01.010
4. Rasool, S., Veyron, S., Soya, N., Eldeeb, M. A., Lukacs, G. L., Fon, E. A., & Trempe, J. F. (2022). Mechanism of PINK1 activation by autophosphorylation and insights into assembly on the TOM complex. Molecular cell, 82(1), 44–59.e6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2021.11.012
5. Kwan, C., Kang, M. S., Nuara, S. G., Gourdon, J. C., Bédard, D., Tardif, C. L., Hopewell, R., Ross, K., Bdair, H., Hamadjida, A., Massarweh, G., Soucy, J. P., Luo, W., Del Cid Pellitero, E., Shlaifer, I., Durcan, T. M., Fon, E. A., Rosa-Neto, P., Frey, S., & Huot, P. (2022). Co-registration of Imaging Modalities (MRI, CT and PET) to Perform Frameless Stereotaxic Robotic Injections in the Common Marmoset. Neuroscience, 480, 143–154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2021.11.009
6. Vranas, M., Lu, Y., Rasool, S., Croteau, N., Krett, J. D., Sauvé, V., Gehring, K., Fon, E. A., Durcan, T. M., & Trempe, J. F. (2022). Selective localization of Mfn2 near PINK1 enables its preferential ubiquitination by Parkin on mitochondria. Open biology, 12(1), 210255. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsob.210255
7. Tavassoly, O., Del Cid Pellitero, E., Larroquette, F., Cai, E., Thomas, R. A., Soubannier, V., Luo, W., Durcan, T. M., & Fon, E. A. (2021). Pharmacological Inhibition of Brain EGFR Activation By a BBB-penetrating Inhibitor, AZD3759, Attenuates α-synuclein Pathology in a Mouse Model of α-Synuclein Propagation. Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics, 10.1007/s13311-021-01017-6. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13311-021-01017-6
8. Eldeeb, M. A., Bayne, A. N., Trempe, J. F., & Fon, E. A. (2020). Fine-Tuning TOM-Mitochondrial Import via Ubiquitin. Trends in cell biology, 30(6), 425–427. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tcb.2020.04.007
9. Roberts, R. F., Bayne, A. N., Goiran, T., Lévesque, D., Boisvert, F. M., Trempe, J. F., & Fon, E. A. (2021). Proteomic Profiling of Mitochondrial-Derived Vesicles in Brain Reveals Enrichment of Respiratory Complex Sub-assemblies and Small TIM Chaperones. Journal of proteome research, 20(1), 506–517. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jproteome.0c00506
10. Gan-Or, Z., Rao, T., Leveille, E., Degroot, C., Chouinard, S., Cicchetti, F., Dagher, A., Das, S., Desautels, A., Drouin-Ouellet, J., Durcan, T., Gagnon, J. F., Genge, A., Karamchandani, J., Lafontaine, A. L., Sun, S., Langlois, M., Levesque, M., Melmed, C., Panisset, M., … Fon, E. A. (2020). The Quebec Parkinson Network: A Researcher-Patient Matching Platform and Multimodal Biorepository. Journal of Parkinson's disease, 10(1), 301–313. https://doi.org/10.3233/JPD-191775

I obtained my PhD in Cell Biology from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, where I specialized in studying vesicular trafficking and more specifically SNARE mediated exocytosis. After completing my PhD, I moved to Montréal in 2009 to join the Neuro with the desire to focus my research on neurological disorders. My decision to move across the Atlantic Ocean was not a surprise for anyone as I fell in love with Canada quite early. Indeed, at the age of 6 or 7, I tried to convince my parents to move the entire family here! During my post-doctoral training in Dr. Peter McPherson's laboratory, I studied Rab-mediated trafficking in glioblastoma and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). I then joined the Neuro-EDDU platform and the Structural Genomic Consortium (SGC) as a Research Associate in 2017. I am now the leader of the ALS team, and I am also involved in the development of the EDDU partnerships with industries, from small local biotech to bigger international pharmaceutical companies. Together with the ALS team, our research is focused on developing assays using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) -derived cells (motor neurons and glial cells) from ALS patients to identify effective molecules and compounds to help the development of new treatments for the disease. Our research also consists in modelling the disease with human cells in 3D, in order to understand the crosstalk between the different cell types, and how some specific pathways could be affected in ALS.

1. Deneault, E., Chaineau, M., Castellanos-Montiel, M. J., Flores, A. K. F., Haghi, G., Chen, C. X. Q., ... & Durcan, T. M. (2021). A streamlined CRISPR workflow to introduce mutations and generate isogenic iPSCs for modeling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. bioRxiv.
2. Castellanos-Montiel MJ, Chaineau M, Durcan TM. (2020) The Neglected Genes of ALS: Cytoskeletal Dynamics Impact Synaptic Degeneration in ALS. Front Cell Neurosci.
3. Soubannier V, Maussion G, Chaineau M, Sigutova V, Rouleau G, Durcan TM, Stifani (2020) Characterization of human iPSC-derived astrocytes with potential for disease modeling and drug discovery. Neurosci Lett.
4. Semmler S, Gagné M, Garg P, Pickles SR, Baudouin C, Hamon-Keromen E, Destroismaisons L, Khalfallah Y, Chaineau M, Caron E, Bayne AN, Trempe JF, Cashman NR, Star AT, Haqqani AS, Durcan TM, Meiering EM, Robertson J, Grandvaux N, Plotkin SS, McBride HM, Vande Velde C. (2020) TNF receptor-associated factor 6 interacts with ALS-linked misfolded superoxide dismutase 1 and promotes aggregation. J Biol Chem
5. Han C*, Chaineau M*, Chen CX, Beitel LK, Durcan TM. (2018) Open Science Meets Stem Cells: A New Drug Discovery Approach for Neurodegenerative Disorders. Front Neurosci.

* Equal contribution from authors

I am a research assistant at the Neuro EDDU. I received my Ph.D in Neurobiology in 1999. During my post-doc training at the University of Pittsburg and University of McGill, I focused on identifying molecular mechanisms underlying synaptic transmission and their implication in Parkinson’s disease (PD). In 2006, I joined Dr. Edward Fon’s lab at The Neuro, where I identified various functions of ubiquitin in the nervous system and how defects in parkin, an E3 ubiquitin ligase, could lead to PD. In 2015, I joined the EDDU platform as an iPSC cell manager, where I was responsible for laboratory establishment, protocol development, and cell line management. Subsequently, I participated more in the development of client projects, providing high-quality services to academic users with iPSC-derived neurons. In 2017, I became a training coordinator, providing iPSC and neuronal induction training and technical support on the platform. In 2019, I became group coordinator of iPSC phenotyping and CRISPR editing, responsible for iPSC reprogramming, iPSC banking, and quality control.

1. X-Q Chen, C., Deneault, E., Abdian, N., You, Z., Sirois, J., Nicouleau, M., Shlaifer, I., Villegas, L., Boivin, M. N., Gaborieau, L., Karamchandani, J., Beitel, L. K., Fon, E. A., & Durcan, T. M. (2022). Generation of patient-derived pluripotent stem cell-lines and CRISPR modified isogenic controls with mutations in the Parkinson's associated GBA gene. Stem cell research, 64, 102919. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scr.2022.102919
2. Chen, C. X., You, Z., Abdian, N., Sirois, J., Shlaifer, I., Tabatabaei, M., Boivin, M. N., Gaborieau, L., Karamchandani, J., Beitel, L. K., Fon, E. A., & Durcan, T. M. (2022). Generation of homozygous PRKN, PINK1 and double PINK1/PRKN knockout cell lines from healthy induced pluripotent stem cells using CRISPR/Cas9 editing. Stem cell research, 62, 102806. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scr.2022.102806
3. Chen CX, Abdian N, Maussion G, Thomas RA, Demirova I, Cai E, Tabatabaei M, Beitel LK, Karamchandani J, Fon EA, Durcan TM. A Multistep Workflow to Evaluate Newly Generated iPSCs and Their Ability to Generate Different Cell Types. (2021) Methods Protocols.
4. Thomas, R. A., Gibon, J., Chen, C., Chierzi, S., Soubannier, V. G., Baulac, S., Séguéla, P., Murai, K., & Barker, P. A. (2018). The Nogo Receptor Ligand LGI1 Regulates Synapse Number and Synaptic Activity in Hippocampal and Cortical Neurons. eNeuro, doi: https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0185-18.2018
5. McLelland, G. L., Goiran, T., Yi, W., Dorval, G., Chen, C. X., Lauinger, N. D., Krahn, A. I., Valimehr, S., Rakovic, A., Rouiller, I., Durcan, T. M., Trempe, J. F., & Fon, E. A. (2018). Mfn2 ubiquitination by PINK1/parkin gates the p97-dependent release of ER from mitochondria to drive mitophagy. eLife, doi: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32866

I started working at the Neuro in April 2000 after finishing my Masters degree in Montreal. I worked as a research assistant in a cell signalling lab directed by Dr. Phil Barker. My duties included molecular biology work like cloning and virus purification but also lab management. In early 2016, I joined Dr. Durcan’s team where I had the opportunity to become familiar with iPSC culture and CRISPR genome editing. I am now operations manager making sure all scientists in our group can run their experiments efficiently.

1. Unsain N, Dorval G, Sheen JH, Barker PA. Generation and characterization of mice bearing null alleles of nradd/Nrh2. Genesis. 2016 Dec;54(12):605-612. doi: 10.1002/dvg.22989. Epub 2016 Nov 12.
2. McLelland GL, Goiran T, Yi W, Dorval G, Chen CX, Lauinger ND, Krahn AI, Valimehr S, Rakovic A, Rouiller I, Durcan TM, Trempe JF, Fon EA. Mfn2 ubiquitination by PINK1/parkin gates the p97-dependent release of ER from mitochondria to drive mitophagy. Elife. 2018 Apr 20;7. pii: e32866. doi: 10.7554/eLife.32866.

I received my Bachelor of Science from the University of Calgary in cellular and molecular biology. After an exciting internship in Spain working with 3D bioprinting, I knew that I wanted to stay in science. I went on to do my Master of Science at the University of Calgary studying cells of the male reproductive tract and learning the principles of genetic editing using CRISPR-Cas9. CRISPR has so much potential in therapeutics and personalized medicine and I wanted to apply my skills in this field. I moved to Minnesota to work at a biotech start-up that focused on gene editing. While there I developed genetically engineered human and porcine iPSCs to generate transplantable human organs in pigs, with the goal of helping to address the shortage faced by those requiring an organ transplant. I am looking forward to now bringing my knowledge and skills of gene editing and stem cells to The Neuro!

1. Ruiz-Estevez M, Crane AT, Rodriguez-Villamil P, Ongaratto FL, You Y, Steevens AR, Hill C, Goldsmith T, Webster DA, Sherry L, Lim S, Denman N, Low WC, Carlson DF, Dutton JR, Steer CJ, Gafni O. Liver development is restored by blastocyst complementation of HHEX knockout in mice and pigs. Stem Cell Res Ther. 2021 May 19;12(1):292
2. Goldsmith T, Bondareva A, Webster D, Voigt LA, Su L, Carlson DF, Dobrinski I. Targeted gene editing in porcine germ cells. In: Verna PJ, Liu J & Sumer H (eds). Springer Nature, Methods in Molecular Biology, Applications of Genome Modulation and Editing. Humana Press, NY. 2022.
3. Shin W, Alpaugh W, Hallihan LJ, Sinha S, Crowther E, Martin GR, Scheidl-Yee T, Yang X, Yoon G, Goldsmith T, Berger ND, de Almeida LG, Dufour A, Dobrinski I, Weinfeld M, Jirik FR, Biernaskie J. PNKP is required for maintaining the integrity of progenitor cell populations in adult mice. Life Sci Alliance. 2021 Jul 5;4(9):e202000790
4. Goldsmith TM, Sakib S, Webster D, Carlson DF, Van der Hoorn F, Dobrinski I. A reduction of primary cilia but not hedgehog signaling disrupts morphogenesis in testicular organoids. Cell Tissue Res. 2020 Apr;380(1):191-200
5. Webster D, Bondareva A, Solin S, Goldsmith T, Su L, Lara NLEM, Carlson DF, Dobrinski I. Targeted Gene Editing in Porcine Spermatogonia. Front Genet. 2021 Jan 28;11:627673

I have been part of the EDDU since 2017, where I manage the assay automation and High Content Screening platform, and oversee the discovery assays and screening group. Before joining the platform, over the course of 10 years I worked in several industrial laboratories in Montreal with a focus on automation, high content microscopy, and image analysis. I managed a light microscopy and molecular biology platform in the department of pharmacology at McGill University. I was born in Germany and received my PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany. My work there and later as a Post-Doc at McGill University circled around the cellular mechanisms that shape the developing embryo. During that time, I already started to develop microscopy tools and automated approaches for my research, and I have maintained a strong interest in this area ever since.

From a very young age, I always knew I wanted to be a scientist, mainly because of fictional characters such as Egon Spengler, Donatello, Gandalf, Obi-Wan and Dr. Beakmann. In 2006, I got a chance when I became an immunology and microbiology undergraduate. After, I continued my studies in the field of immunology in the laboratory of Dr. Nathalie Labrecque at Université de Montréal. I learned many techniques during this time, but mainly focused on flow cytometry. My passion was born. While I was writing my thesis, I worked for a Contract Research Organization but missed the academic side of science. After months of searching, an opportunity opened up at Experimental Therapeutics Program at the Montreal Neuro, led by Dr. Amit Bar-Or. I brought a lot of my flow cytometry expertise to my newfound new team. Unknown to me at the time, my growing curiosity of the neurology world help me create new ways to approach flow cytometry in general. In the beginning of 2019, I was promoted as the first Neuro Flow Cytometry Facility manager, which will help to make flow cytometry more accessible. Flow Cytometry is not common equipment to be used in a Neurological Institute. My ultimate goal would be to teach the fundamentals of Flow Cytometry to other researchers to use this underutilized equipment. Just by implementing flow cytometry would open the floodgates on the amount of new information we can get. Ultimately, this will definitely help patients because we are able to use their specific cells. We are very lucky to have access to patient samples, not just myself but The Neuro as a whole.

1. Mohamed, N. V., Lépine, P., Lacalle-Aurioles, M., Sirois, J., Mathur, M., Reintsch, W., Beitel, L. K., Fon, E. A., & Durcan, T. M. (2021). Microfabricated disk technology: rapid scale up in midbrain organoid generation. Methods (San Diego, Calif.) Preprint available : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymeth.2021.07.008
2. Mohamed NV, Sirois J, Ramamurthy J, Mathur M, Lepine P, Deneault E, Maussion G, Nicouleau M, Chen CX, Abdian N, Soubannier V, Cai, E, Nami, H., Thomas, RA, Beitel, LK, Dolt, K.S., Karamchandani, J, Kunath, K., Fon, EA, Durcan, TM. (2021) Midbrain organoids with an SNCA gene triplication model key features of synucleinopathy. BrainComm. Preprint available: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.12.439480v1
3. Rostami, J., Fotaki, G., Sirois, J., Mzezewa, R., Bergström, J., Essand, M., Healy, L., & Erlandsson, A. (2020). Astrocytes have the capacity to act as antigen-presenting cells in the Parkinson's disease brain. Journal of neuroinflammation, doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12974-020-01776-7
4. Sirois J, Daudelin J-F, Boulet S, Marquis M, Meloche S, Labrecque N. 2015. The atypical MAPK ERK3 controls positive selection of thymocytes. Immunology doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/imm.12433.
5. Marquis M, Daudelin JF, Boulet S, Sirois J, Crain K, Mathien S, Turgeon B, Rousseau J, Meloche S, Labrecque N. 2014. The catalytic activity of the mitogen-activated protein kinase extracellular signal-regulated kinase 3 is required to sustain CD4+CD8+ thymocyte survival. Mol Cell Bioldoi: https://doi.org/10.1128/MCB.01701-13.

I am research assistant at EDDU since 2018. I received my PhD in molecular medicine in 2015. Currently, I am working in iPS generation group and I am responsible for iPSC generation and differentiation into different neuronal types. I am also involved in characterization, quality control, and managing data sheets of iPSC lines. In addition, I coordinate iPSC and neural induction training. It is the greatest joy and motivation for me to wake up every day with the hope to know something new in science and find a way to help people suffering from any neurodegenerative disease. I am really happy to have the opportunity to do research in neuroscience; one of the most complicated and unique systems that I have ever seen.

1. Carol X-Q. Chen, Narges Abdian, Gilles Maussion, Rhalena A. Thomas, Iveta Demirova, Eddie Cai, Edward A. Fon, Thomas M. Durcan. Standardized QC workflow foranalyzing the quality and differentiation potential of human iPSCs. ISSCR Annual Meeting 26-29 June 2019, Los Angeles, USA.
2. Abdian, N., Ghasemi-Dehkordi, P., Hashemzadeh-Chaleshtori, M., Ganji-Arjenaki, M., Doosti, A., & Amiri, B. (2015). Comparison of human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs) growth rate in culture media supplemented with or without basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF). Cell and tissue banking, 16(4), 487–495. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10561-015-9494-9
3. Narges Abdian, Mehdi Allahbakhshian-Farsani, Somayeh Khosravi-Farsani, Payam Ghasemi-Dehkordi, Sedigheh Kazemi-Sheykhshabani , Mahboubeh Ganji-Arjenaki, Morteza Hashemzadeh-Chaleshtori. Generation of HSC-like Cells from Human Embryonic Stem Cells by Inhibition of TGF-βR2 Signaling. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., India, 2015, Sect. B Biol. Sci. DOI 10.1007/s40011-015-0504-2.
4. Ghasemi-Dehkordi P, Allahbakhshian-Farsani M, Abdian N, et al. Comparison between the cultures of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) on feeder-and serum-free system (Matrigel matrix), MEF and HDF feeder cell lines. J Cell Commun Signal. 2015;9(3):233-246. doi:10.1007/s12079-015-0289-3
5. Abdian, N., Gholami, E., Zahedifard, F., Safaee, N., & Rafati, S. (2011). Evaluation of DNA/DNA and prime-boost vaccination using LPG3 against Leishmania major infection in susceptible BALB/c mice and its antigenic properties in human leishmaniasis. Experimental parasitology, 127(3), 627–636. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exppara.2010.12.007

Born and raised in Zaragoza, Spain, I received my Biotechnology BSc from the Universidad de Zaragoza and my MSc in Genetics and Cell Biology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. During the past few years, I’ve worked for different research teams, especially in molecular and cellular biology techniques such as extraction of RNA and DNA, quantitative PCR, or western blot. I’ve also worked as research assistant at Lozano Blesa University Clinical Hospital and for a company to set up lateral flow immunocromatography devices for the diagnosis of human diseases. That’s when I really realized the impact that our work could have for real patients (but not only) and how important research is. I got a scholarship and I first came to Montréal in 2018 to accomplish my BSc’s last year in an interuniversity exchange context. During this year, I had the opportunity of working in an internship at the UQAM. I joined an amazing team where I explored Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) differentiation within flux cytometry. I fell in love with this city so I decided to come back in 2022, looking for new challenging opportunities which let me keep developing my skills and ended up adding Dr. Durcan’s team and the Neuro's EDDU in 2023.

I completed my master at the Université de Rouen (FRANCE) where I explored the behavior and the cerebellum architecture of the Weaver mice. I then moved to CANADA, University of Montreal (Québec, CANADA) for my PhD where under the supervision of Drs J.Michaud et G.DiCristo I did study the impact of Syngap1 mutations in the synapse development of mouse GABAergic neurons and its behavioral consequences. The experience as a PhD emphasized a strong desire to understand the cellular & molecular mechanisms involved in neural circuit assembly. My postdoctoral fellowship at The Broad Institute of Harvard & MIT (Cambridge, USA) under the supervision of Drs L.Barrett & L.Rubin focused on an automated high-content drug discovery synaptic assay using human induced neurons. I am currently working at The Early Drug Discovery Unit, McGill University (Montreal, Québec, CANADA) as a research associate using iPSC to understand mechanisms and potentially find new treatments or improved therapies for neurodevelopmental disorders.

1. Martin H. Berryer, Matthew Tegtmeyer, Loic Binan, Vera Valakh, Anna Nathanson, Darina Trendafilova, Ethan Crouse, Jenny Klein, Daniel Meyer, Olli Pietilainen, Francesca Rapino, Samouil L. Farhi, Lee L. Rubin, Steven A. McCarroll, Ralda Nehme and Lindy Barrett. Robust induction of functional astrocytes using NGN2 expression in human pluripotent stem cells. (2023). iScience. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.106995 

2. Martin H. Berryer, Gizem Rizki, Sara G. Susco, Daisy Lam, Angelica Messana, Darina Trendafilova, Anna Nathanson, Kyle W. Karhohs, Beth A. Cimini, Kathleen Pfaff, Anne E. Carpenter, Lee L. Rubin, and Lindy E. Barrett. A fully automated high-content synaptic screen in human neurons and astrocytes reveals a role for BET proteins in synapse assembly. (2023). eLife. PMID: 37083703. 

3. Khlaifia A, Jadhav V, Danik M, Badra T, Berryer MH, Dionne-Laporte A, Chattopadhyaya B, Di Cristo G, Lacaille JC, Michaud JL. Syngap1 disruption induced by recombination between inverted loxP sites is associated with hippocampal interneuron dysfunction. (2023). eNeuro. PMID: 37072176.  

4. Sara G. Susco, Sulagna Ghosh, Patrizia Mazzucato, Gabriella Angelini, Amanda Beccard, Victor Barrera, Martin H Berryer, Angelica Messana, Daisy Lam, Dane Z. Hazelbaker, Lindy E. Barrett. Molecular convergence between Down syndrome and Fragile X syndrome identified using human pluripotent stem cell models. (2022) Cell Reports. PMID: 36070702. 

5. Clara A.Amegandjin, Mayukh Choudhury, Vidya Jadhav, Josianne Nunes Carrico, Arianne Quintal, Martin H Berryer , Marina Snapyan, Bidisha Chattopadhyaya, Armen Saghatelyan, Graziella Di Cristo. Inhibition of mTOR during a postnatal critical sensitive window rescues deficit in GABAergic Pv cell connectivity and social behavior caused by loss of Tsc1. (2021). Nature Communications. PMID: 34135323. 

6. Martin H Berryer, Sara G Kosmaczewski, Lindy E Barrett. (2019). Fly Model sheds light on brain disease. Elife. PMID: 31808420. (Insight article).  

7. Mathieu Nadeau-Vallée, Peck-Yin Chin, Lydia Belarbi, Marie-Ève Brien, Sheetal Pundir, Martin H Berryer, Alexandra Beaudry-Richard, Ankush Madaan, David J Sharkey,

   wen.luo2 [at] mcgill.ca (Wen Luo)

   Research Assistant

   "Finding new drugs for treating neural degeneration still remains a challenge even after four decades. I am proud of working at The Neuro with my expertise to support the PD research, and to facilitate drug discovery through providing high quality proteins to our research team and collaborative partners in Canada and abroad."

   "过去四十年没能找到治疗神经退行性疾病的新药，是人类的一大挑战。在这个开放平台，通过我提供的纯化蛋白，促进基础研究和加快药物开发，我就倍感荣幸。"

   Read Wen's biography

   Before joining The Neuro in February 2017, I had more than two decades of bench work experience in purification and characterization of proteins/enzymes of various origins (for bioconversion of lignocelluloses, indoor airborne allergen monitoring, antibody generation, and cancer treatment drug discovery), as well as in development and Taguchi-based optimization of immunoassays (for quantitation of indoor fungal allergens or cancer biomarkers using sandwich ELISA, high-throughput microarrays, etc.). Over the past twenty years, though the misfolded alpha-synuclein has been implied to play a role in Parkinson disease (PD), there are still some gaps in our knowledge and challenges in finding pharmaceuticals to treat neurodegenerative diseases. Providing high quality purified proteins of interest is my essential task and effective support for our research team and collaboration partners in fighting against PD and other diseases.

   Selected publications

   1. Benjamin Feller, Aurélie Fallon, Wen Luo, Phuong Trang Nguyen, Irina Shlaifer, Alfred Kihoon Lee, Samer Karkout, Steve Bourgault, Thomas M Durcan, Hideto Takahashi (2023). α-synuclein preformed fibrils bind to β-neurexins and impair β-neurexin-mediated presynaptic organization. bioRxiv 2023.01.28.526024; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.01.28.526024
   2. Omid Tavassoly, Esther del Cid Pellitero, Frederique Larroquette, Eddie Cai, Rhalena A. Thomas, Vincent Soubannier, Wen Luo, Thomas M. Durcan, Edward A. Fon (2021) Pharmacological Inhibition of Brain EGFR Activation By a BBB-penetrating Inhibitor, AZD3759, Attenuates α-synuclein Pathology in a Mouse Model of α-Synuclein Propagation. Neurotherapeutics (IF7.62), DOI: 10.1007/s13311-021-01017-6
   3. Wen Luo, Mateu Pla-Roca and David Juncker. (2011) Taguchi design-based optimization of sandwich immunoassay microarrays for detecting breast cancer biomarkers. Analytical Chemistry. 83:5767-5774.
   4. Wen Luo, Aaron M. Wilson and J. David Miller (2010) Characterization of a 52 kDa exoantigen of Penicillium chrysogenum and monoclonal antibodies suitable for its detection. Mycopathologia 169:15-26.
   5. Aaron M. Wilson, Wen Luo and J. David Miller (2009) Using human sera to identify a 52-kDa exoantigen of Penicillium chrysogenum and implications of polyphasic taxonomy of anamorphic Ascomycetes in the study of antigenic proteins. Mycopathologia 168:213-226.

    

   is Lupien-Meilleur, Xin Hou, Christiane Quiniou, Alexandre Beaulac, Ines Boufaied, Amarilys Boudreault, Adriana Carbonaro, Ngoc-Duc Doan, Jean-Sebastien Joyal, William D Lubell, David M Olson, Sarah A Robertson, Sylvie Girard, Sylvain Chemtob. (2017). Antenatal suppression of IL-1 protects against inflammation-induced fetal injury and improves neonatal and developmental outcomes in mice. Journal of Immunology. PMID: 28148737.  

    

8. Martin H. Berryer, Bidisha Chattopadhyaya, Paul Xing, Ilse Riebe, Ciprian Bosoi, Nathalie Sanon, Judith Antoine-Bertrand, Maxime Lévesque, Massimo Avoli, Fadi F. Hamdan, Lionel Carmant, Nathalie Lamarche-Vane, Jean-Claude Lacaille, Jacques L. Michaud, Graziella Di Cristo. (2016). Decrease of Syngap1 in GABAergic cells impairs inhibitory synapse development, synaptic inhibition and cognitive function. Nature Communications. PMID: 27827368.  

9. Martin H. Berryer, Fadi F. Hamdan, Laura L. Klitten, Rikke S. Møller, Lionel Carmant, Jeremy Schwartzentruber, Lysanne Patry, Sylvia Dobrzeniecka, Daniel Rochefort, Mathilde Neugnot‐Cerioli, Jean‐Claude Lacaille, Zhiyv Niu, Christine M. Eng, Yaping Yang, Sylvain Palardy, Céline Belhumeur, Guy A. Rouleau, Niels Tommerup, LaDonna Immken, Miriam H. Beauchamp, Gayle Simpson Patel, Jacek Majewski, Mark A. Tarnopolsky, Klaus Scheffzek, Helle Hjalgrim, Jacques L. Michaud, Graziella Di Cristo. (2012). Mutations in SYNGAP1 cause intellectual disability, autism, and a specific form of epilepsy by inducing haploinsufficiency. Human Mutation. PMID: 23161826.  

Anna Franco is a Research Assistant at the Neuro's EDDU. She obtained her BSc. in Bioengineering in Baja California, Mexico. During her undergraduate studies, she was awarded a research internship scholarship (MITACS) at the Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CRCHUM) in the neuro-metabolic group. This experience enhanced her research skills and passion for understanding the inner workings of the brain. Following her dream, Anna moved to Montréal to later obtain her MSc degree in Neuroscience from the University of Montréal in 2018, while working as a trainee at CRCHUM. Her outstanding work in cellular and molecular neuroscience brought her to The Neuro in 2019, joining the team of high-content screening and automation. She currently works on ALS-specific projects along with the generation, characterization and maintenance of iPSC cells derived from ALS-patients or healthy individuals.

I started my journey as a scientist with a bachelor degree in Genetics in Iran. To continue my studies I moved to the UK. After completing a master's degree in reproductive biology and focusing mainly on human stem cells, I joined the Centre for Neurodegeneration diseases in Edinburgh as a research assistant for a few years. Moving to Canada and finding my path again was a new challenge. After working in a few companies and expanding my expertise into reproductive genetics, I have returned to academia and am excited to be working with human iPSCs again.

1. Qiu J, McQueen J, Bilican B, Dando O, Magnani D, Punovuori K, Selvaraj BT, Livesey M, Haghi G, Heron S, Burr K, Patani R, Rajan R, Sheppard O, Kind PC, Simpson TI, Tybulewicz VL, Wyllie DJ, Fisher EM, Lowell S, Chandran S, Hardingham GE. (2016) Evidence for evolutionary divergence of activity-dependent gene expression in developing neurons. Elife doi: 10.7554/eLife.20337.
2. Bilican B, Livesey MR, Haghi G, Qiu J, Burr K, Siller R, Hardingham GE, Wyllie DJ, Chandran S. PLoS One. (2014) Physiological normoxia and absence of EGF is required for the long-term propagation of anterior neural precursors from human pluripotent cells. PLOS ONE doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0085932.
3. James OT, Livesey MR, Qiu J, Dando O, Bilican B, Haghi G, Rajan R, Burr K, Hardingham GE, Chandran S, Kind PC, Wyllie DJ. (2014) Ionotropic GABA and glycine receptor subunit composition in human pluripotent stem cell-derived excitatory cortical neurones. J Physiol. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2014.278994.
4. Livesey MR, Bilican B, Qiu J, Rzechorzek NM, Haghi G, Burr K, Hardingham GE, Chandran S, Wyllie DJ. (2014) Maturation of AMPAR composition and the GABAAR reversal potential in hPSC-derived cortical neurons. J Neurosci.. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5410-13.2014.
5. Serio A, Bilican B, Barmada SJ, Ando DM, Zhao C, Siller R, Burr K, Haghi G, Story D, Nishimura AL, Carrasco MA, Phatnani HP, Shum C, Wilmut I, Maniatis T, Shaw CE, Finkbeiner S, Chandran S. (2013) Astrocyte pathology and the absence of non-cell autonomy in an induced pluripotent stem cell model of TDP-43 proteinopathy. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1300398110.

I received my bachelor degree of Science in biochemistry & neuroscience from the University of Toronto. After graduation, I moved to Montreal as I have always been fascinated by this beautiful and multicultural city. It is a great pleasure to be a part of the EDDU team at the Neuro, where researchers here are highly cooperative and working towards a mutual goal – finding better treatments for patients. This is what motivates me everyday. I believe Open Science is an important value for improving human health, as by sharing more, we open the door for creating more.

Born in China, my home soon became the suburbs of the Greater Toronto Area, where my passion for both science and writing grew. Determined to pursue both, I am currently majoring in Biology and English at McGill, discovering insightful intersections between both fields every day. One of the greatest opportunities to apply both skills has been here at the EDDU, where I work on creating lab protocol and outreach videos, as well as managing our website, Data Portal, and social media. I believe that open sharing and effective communication of new research is at the forefront of science and progress, especially in an age where information is so readily available. With my amazing colleague, Luisa Pimentel, our outreach team continues to contribute to Open Science by sharing the incredible work done here at the EDDU on an international stage.

Andrea was born in Mexico City and later raised in the small town of Niagara on the Lake. She attended Brock University, where she received her BSc in Neuroscience. She then worked as a chemical analyst at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters before moving to Montréal to pursue a master’s in Neuroscience at McGill. She is now a research assistant at the Neuro’s EDDU, working on automation of assays in iPSC-derived neurons for high content screening.

1. Tang, M.Y., M. Vranas, A.I. Krahn, S. Pundlik, J.F. Trempe, and E.A. Fon. 2017. Structure-guided mutagenesis reveals a hierarchical mechanism of Parkin activation. Nat Commun. 8:14697.
2. McLelland, G.L., T. Goiran, W. Yi, G. Dorval, C.X. Chen, N.D. Lauinger, A.I. Krahn, S. Valimehr, A. Rakovic, I. Rouiller, T.M. Durcan, J.F. Trempe, and E.A. Fon. 2018. Mfn2 ubiquitination by PINK1/parkin gates the p97-dependent release of ER from mitochondria to drive mitophagy. eLife. 7. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.32866
3. Yi, W., E.J. MacDougall, M.Y. Tang, A.I. Krahn, Z. Gan-Or, J.F. Trempe, E.A. Fon. 2019. The landscape of Parkin variants reveals pathogenic mechanisms and therapeutic targets in Parkinson’s disease. Hum Mol Genet. DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddz080

I received my master’s degree from Université de Montréal in Neuroscience with the focus on Neuro-Immunology. Upon graduation, I started working at CRCHUM where I expanded my knowledge of histology, cell culture, and flow cytometry. Later on, I joined the Neuro’s EDDU where I help other researchers analyze their organoids through cryosectioning. I am also a part of the organoid generation team where alongside other team members I oversee the production of numerous brain organoids.

1. Mohamed NV, Sirois J, Ramamurthy J, Mathur M, Lépine P, Deneault E, Maussion G, Nicouleau M, Chen CXQ, Abdian N, Soubannier V, Cai E, Nami H, Thomas RA, Tabatabaei M, Beitel LK, Singh Dolt K, Karamchandani J, Kunath T, Fon EA, Durcan TM (2021) Midbrain organoids with an SNCA gene triplication model key features of synucleinopathy. In press in Brain Communications. Preprint available: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.12.439480
2. Imanbekova M, Suarasan S, Rojalin T, Mizenko R, Hilt S, Mathur M, Lépine P, Nicouleau M, Mohamed NV, Durcan TM, Carney RP, Voss JC, and Wachsmann-Hogiu S. (2021) Identification of amyloid beta in small extracellular vesicles via Raman spectroscopy. Nanoscale Advances, doi: http://doi.org/10.1039/D1NA00330E.
3. Mohamed NV, Lépine P, Lacalle-Aurioles M, Sirois J, Mathur M, Reintsch W, Beitel LK, Fon EA, Durcan TM.( 2021) Microfabricated disk technology: rapid scale up in midbrain organoid generation. Methods, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymeth.2021.07.008
4. Zhang I, Lépine P, Han C, Lacalle-Aurioles M, Chen CX, Haag R, Durcan TM, Maysinger D. (2020) Nanotherapeutic Modulation of Human Neural Cells and Glioblastoma in Organoids and Monocultures. Cells, doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/cells9112434
5. Masaki K, Sonobe Y, Ghadge G, Pytel P, Lépine P, Pernin F, Cui QL, Antel JP, Zandee S, Prat A, Roos RP. (2020) RNA-binding protein altered expression and mislocalization in MS. Neurol Neuroimmunol Neuroinflamm. doi: https://doi.org/10.1212/NXI.0000000000000704

Over the past fifteen years, I have been working on understanding the cellular and molecular causes of neurological and psychiatric diseases. In 2008, at the University René Descartes, Paris, France, I completed a PhD focused on (i) the molecular deregulation observed in post-mortem brain tissue from patients diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorders and (ii) the subcellular mechanisms that are potentially affected by this deregulation. In 2009, I joined the McGill Group for Suicide Studies as a postdoctoral fellow, where I analyzed epigenetic modifications, microRNA and non-coding RNA expression potentially related to suicidal behaviours using post-mortem brain samples. Since January 2012, through my research activity in the McGill Psychiatric Genetics Group, I became interested in the field of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) as a tool to elucidate the molecular causes of developmental disorders. Using embryonically derived stem cells, I studied events occurring early in life that are required for proper differentiation into neurons. Since January 2017, as a research associate at the Neuro's Early Drug Discovery Unit, I have managed projects related to intellectual disabilities, while specializing in generating and characterizing iPSC-derived neurons and astrocytes to further investigate neurodevelopmental disease.

1. Maussion, G*., Thomas, RA.*, Demirova, I., Gu, G., Cai, E., Chen, C. X., Abdian, N., Strauss, T., Kelaï, S., Nauleau-Javaudin, A., Beitel, L. K., Ramoz, N., Gorwood, P., Durcan, T. M. Auto-qPCR; a python-based web app for automated and reproducible analysis of qPCR data. Sci Rep 11, 21293 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-99727-6 

2. Maussion G, Rocha C, Beitel L.K., Durcan T.M. (2019) Patient-derived stem cells, another in vitro model or the missing link towards novel therapies for Autism Spectrum Disorders? Mini-review Front Pediatr. Jun 6;7:225. 

3. Bell S*, Maussion G*, Jefri M, Peng H, Theroux JF, Silveira H, Soubannier V, Wu H, Hu P, Galat E, Torres-Platas SG, Boudreau-Pinsonneault C, O'Leary LA, Galat V, Turecki G, Durcan TM, Fon EA, Mechawar N, Ernst C (2018) Disruption of GRIN2B Impairs Differentiation in Human Neurons. Stem Cell Reports 11:183-196. 

4. Maussion G*, Diallo AB*, Gigek CO, Chen ES, Crapper L, Theroux JF, Chen GG, Vasuta C, Ernst C (2015) Investigation of genes important in neurodevelopment disorders in adult human brain. Hum Genet 134:1037-1053. 

5. Maussion G, Yang J, Suderman M, Diallo A, Nagy C, Arnovitz M, Mechawar N, Turecki G (2014) Functional DNA methylation in a transcript specific 3'UTR region of TrkB associates with suicide. Epigenetics 9:1061-1070. 

6. Labonte B, Suderman M, Maussion G, Navaro L, Yerko V, Mahar I, Bureau A, Mechawar N, Szyf M, Meaney MJ, Turecki G (2012) Genome-wide epigenetic regulation by early-life trauma. Arch Gen Psychiatry 69:722-731. 

*These authors contributed equally.

I have a master’s degree of Cellular Biology (Immnuology) and a postgraduate degree of Biology and Pharmacology of Aging. I start to work in Paris in pharmaceutical industry (SANOFI) for 10 years in the neurodegenerative disease service where I studied ischemia and trauma in rat models, then in the Oncology service working on telomerase and cell senescence. I moved to Marseille (France) for public institute (Inserm) where I worked for 1 year on Huntington's disease and RNA interference. I left France for Singapore where I worked for 5 years in MBI (Mechanobiology institute) in the regenerative nanomedicine service first, and then in cell adhesion and mechanics service to study dynamics of epithelial cell-cell junctions. I joined The Neuro in Montreal (Canada) in March 2017 in the neurodegenerative disorders service to work on Parkinson’s disease.

1. Yian Yang, Emmanuelle Nguyen, Gautham Hari Narayana Sankara Narayana, Melina Heuzé, René-Marc Mège, Benoit Ladoux, Michael P. Sheetz (2021) Local Contractions Regulate E-Cadherin Adhesions, Rigidity Sensing and Epithelial Cell Sorting BioRxiv. Preprint available: https://doi.org/10.1101/318642
2. Plestant C, Strale PO, Seddiki R, Nguyen E, Ladoux B, Mège RM. (2014) Adhesive interactions of N-cadherin limit the recruitment of microtubules to cell-cell contacts through organization of actomyosin. J Cell Sci.
3. Riou J.F., Guittat L., Mailliet P., Laoui A., Renou E., Petitgenet O., Megrin-Chanet F., Helene C. and Mergny J.L. (2002) Cell senescence and telomere shortening induced by a new series of G-quadruplex DNA ligands. PNAS.
4. Wahl F., Renou E., Mary V., and Stutzmann J-M. (1997) Riluzole reduces brain lesions and improves neurological function in rats after a traumatic brain injury. Brain Res.

I am a Research Assistant whose main activity is to help on the genetic side such as creating, validating ,and characterizing new cell lines; this is the first step for the generation of new models to study neurodegenerative disorders. Before starting at The Neuro, I spent 9 years in several research groups in France and in the US where I studied distinct human diseases, from nephrology to ophthalmology and cerebellar malformations. Using a recent high-throughput sequencing approach, I participated in the identification and characterization of novel genes and mutations associated with rare genetic diseases. Over the past 5 years, I have focused on brain pathologies using multiple models such as mouse, human stem cells, and iPSC-derived 3D-organoids. When not travelling, I enjoy going on hikes, riding motorcycles, and dreaming of my next adventure.

1. Chemin J, Siquier-Pernet K, Nicouleau M, et al. De novo mutation screening in childhood-onset cerebellar atrophy identifies gain-of-function mutations in the CACNA1G calcium channel gene. Brain. 2018;141(7):1998-2013. doi:10.1093/brain/awy145
2. Medina-Cano, D., Ucuncu, E., Nguyen, L. S., Nicouleau, M., Lipecka, J., Bizot, J. C., Thiel, C., Foulquier, F., Lefort, N., Faivre-Sarrailh, C., Colleaux, L., Guerrera, I. C., & Cantagrel, V. (2018). High N-glycan multiplicity is critical for neuronal adhesion and sensitizes the developing cerebellum to N-glycosylation defect. eLife, 7, e38309. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.38309
3. Stessman, Holly A F et al. “Disruption of POGZ Is Associated with Intellectual Disability and Autism Spectrum Disorders.” American journal of human genetics vol. 98,3 (2016): 541-552. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.02.004
4. Megahed H, Nicouleau M, Barcia G, et al. Utility of whole exome sequencing for the early diagnosis of pediatric-onset cerebellar atrophy associated with developmental delay in an inbred population. Orphanet J Rare Dis. 2016;11(1):57. Published 2016 May 4. doi:10.1186/s13023-016-0436-9
5. Perrault, I., Hanein, S., Zanlonghi, X., Serre, V., Nicouleau, M., Defoort-Delhemmes, S., Delphin, N., Fares-Taie, L., Gerber, S., Xerri, O., Edelson, C., Goldenberg, A., Duncombe, A., Le Meur, G., Hamel, C., Silva, E., Nitschke, P., Calvas, P., Munnich, A., Roche, O., … Rozet, J. M. (2012). Mutations in NMNAT1 cause Leber congenital amaurosis with early-onset severe macular and optic atrophy. Nature genetics, 44(9), 975–977. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2357

I graduated in Naples, Italy in Medical Biotechnology and immediately after I joined the Physiology program of the PhD course in Applied Biology, working at the National Research Council where I became interested in Developmental Neurobiology that remains my main focus. After my PhD, I moved to Montreal, and started work at the MNI where I have been working on Glioblastoma stem cell biology with Dr. Stefano Stifani. Finally, I joined the Neuro's EDDU where I am mainly focusing on the differentiation of oligodendrocytes from human iPSCs.

1. Kulasekaran G., Chaineau M., Piscopo V., Verginelli F., Fotouhi M., Girard M., Tang Y., Dali R., Lo R., Stifani S. and McPherson P.(2021) An Arf/Rab cascade controls the growth and invasiveness of glioblastoma J Cell Biol. doi: 10.1083/jcb.202004229.
2. Rosmaninho P., Mükusch S., Piscopo V., Teixeira V., Raposo A.A., Warta R., Bennewitz R., Tang Y., Herold-Mende C., Stifani S., Momma S., Castro D.S. (2018) Zeb1 potentiates genome-wide gene transcription with Lef1 to promote glioblastoma cell invasion. EMBO Journal 10.15252/embj.201797115
3. Bellenchi G., Volpicelli F., Piscopo V., Perrone-Capano C. and di Porzio U. (2012) Adult neural stem cells: an endogenous tool to repair brain injury? Journal of Neurochemistry (2012) 10.1111/jnc. 1208

I am Brazilian born in Rio de Janeiro and raised just across the bridge in the most beautiful city in the world, Niteroi. I always loved science and travelling so I naturally moved to the second most pretty city in the world, Paris, to do my PhD studying cellular cytoskeleton alterations in cancer cells. But I was always very intrigued by neuronal morphology and freezing temperatures, so I came to Montréal to work on brain development research and enjoy the real winter wonderland.

1. Maussion et al., 2019. Patient-Derived Stem Cells, Another in vitro Model, or the Missing Link Toward Novel Therapies for Autism Spectrum Disorders? Front. Pediatri: 6;7:225.
2. Bosch Grau M et al., 2017. Alterations in the balance of tubulin glycylation and glutamylation in photoreceptors leads to retinal degeneration. J Cell Sci: 30: 938-949.
3. Wieczorek M et al., 2016. The synthetic diazonamide DZ-2384 has distinct effects on microtubule curvature and dynamics without neurotoxicity. Sci Transl Med: 365ra159
4. Rocha C et al., 2014. Tubulin glycylases are required for primary cilia, control of cellular proliferation and tumor development in colon. EMBO: 33: 2247-2250.
5. Tort et al., 2014. The cytosolic carboxypeptidase family is dedicated to posttranslational removal of acidic amino acids. Mol Cell Biol: 25(19):3017-27.

Born in Ukraine and raised in a family of a physician and a science teacher, I always had a passion for biomedical science. Following the Chernobyl nuclear accident that occurred near my hometown, I moved to Israel where I completed my bachelor’s in medical laboratory sciences and MSc in Biotechnology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, focusing on delineating the structure and function of brain glutamate transporters. After working for several years in medical genetics and biotechnology research and development laboratories, I decided to realize my dream and immigrate to Canada together with my spouse and my two children. After completing my PhD in Biochemistry at Concordia University, I joined The Neuro in 2018. At the EDDU I have been working on generating and characterizing CRISPR knockout cell lines for the antibody validation platform and to model neurodegenerative diseases. Additionally, I am responsible for the generation and maintenance of IPSC-derived microglia from healthy individuals and ALS patients. I am also engaged in quality control characterization of alpha-synuclein preformed fibrils used in studies to model Parkinson’s disease. Since 2019, together with Luisa Pimentel, I co-coordinate the iPSC seminar series which gathers scientists working with IPSC technology in Montreal, Canada and beyond to share their cutting-edge research. I hope that all this exciting work will allow us to combat neurodegenerative diseases and bring a positive change to our world. Besides science, I love mother nature and love to garden colourful flowers and berries and to explore beautiful places around the globe. 

1. C. X-Q Chen, E. Deneault, N. Abdian, Z. You, J. Sirois, M. Nicouleau,  I.  Shlaifer, L. Villegas, M. N. Boivin, L. Gaborieau, J. Karamchandani, L.K. Beitel, E. A. Fon and T. M. Durcan. Generation of patient-derived pluripotent stem cell-lines and CRISPR modified isogenic controls with mutations in the Parkinson's associated GBA gene. Stem cell research (2022), 64, 102919. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scr.2022.102919  
2. W. Alshafie, M. Fotouhi,  I.  Shlaifer, R. Ayoubi, A. M. Edwards, T. M. Durcan, P. S. McPherson and C. Laflamme. Identification of highly specific antibodies for Serine/threonine-protein kinase TBK1 for use in immunoblot, immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence. (2022) F1000Research. 11, 977.    https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.124632.2 
3. A. Bayati, E. Banks, C Han, W. Luo, W. E. Reintsch, C. E. Zorca,  I.  Shlaifer, E. Del Cid Pellitero, B. Vanderperre, H. M. McBride, E. A. Fon, T. M. Durcan and P. S. McPherson. Rapid macropinocytic transfer of α-synuclein to lysosomes. Cell reports (2022) 40, 3, 111102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111102  
4. E. Deneault, M. Chaineau, M. Nicouleau, M. José Castellanos Montiel, A. Kristyna Franco Flores, G. Haghi, C. X-Q Chen, N. Abdian,  I. Shlaifer, L.K. Beitel, T. M. Durcan. A streamlined CRISPR workflow to introduce mutations and generate isogenic iPSCs for modeling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Methods (2021), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymeth.2021.09.002  
5. I. Shlaifer, P. K. Quashie, H. Y. Kim and J. L. Turnbull Biochemical Characterization of TyrA Enzymes From Ignicoccus hospitalis and Haemophilus influenzae: A comparative study of the bifunctional and monofunctional dehydrogenase forms. Biochim. Biophys. Acta (2017) 1856, 312-320.  

I studied biochemistry at University of Bordeaux and obtained a Ph.D. in biological and Medical sciences in 2002, studying the structure of the mitochondrial ATP synthase. I studied how the oligomerization of the enzyme drives the tubulation of inner membranes. I then worked as a post-doc in Munich, at the Butenandt Institute, where I identified the first molecular component of cristae junctions: structures present at the opening of the tubular shape of mitochondrial inner membrane. In 2006, I emigrated to Canada, in Ottawa, working as a post-doc on the newly discovered mitochondrial derived vesicles: a new cell pathway that we showed to be possibly implicated in Parkinson’s disease. This study raised my interest in the field of neuroscience and in 2011, I moved to Montreal and started to work as a research associate at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Notably, I contributed in clarifying the mechanisms that control normal mammalian nervous system development and today, I am involved in a large effort that aim to model Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) using neural cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).

1. Methot L, Soubannier V, Hermann R, Campos E, Li S, Stifani S. Nuclear factor-kappaB regulates multiple steps of gliogenesis in the developing murine cerebral cortex. Glia. 2018 Dec;66(12):2659-2672.
2. Soubannier V, Stifani S. Biomedicines. NF-κB Signalling in Glioblastoma. 2017 Jun 9;5(2). pii: E29. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines5020029. Review.
3. McLelland GL, Soubannier V, Chen CX, McBride HM, Fon EA. Parkin and PINK1 function in a vesicular trafficking pathway regulating mitochondrial quality control. EMBO J. 2014 Feb 18;33(4):282-95.
4. Soubannier V, McLelland GL, Zunino R, Braschi E, Rippstein P, Fon EA, McBride HM. A vesicular transport pathway shuttles cargo from mitochondria to lysosomes. Curr Biol. 2012 Jan 24;22(2):135-41. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.11.057. Epub 2012 Jan 5
5. Soubannier V, Rippstein P, Kaufman BA, Shoubridge EA, McBride HM. Reconstitution of mitochondria derived vesicle formation demonstrates selective enrichment of oxidized cargo. PLoS One. 2012;7(12):e52830

I have worked as a research associate since 2016 at the Neuro's EDDU and participated in setting up the cellular biobank here. My main responsibility is to provide various immortal cell lines (iPSC cell lines and cancer cell lines), in which disease relevant genes have been edited with the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool. Meanwhile, I also generate iPSC cell lines from patients and healthy individuals for the cellular biobank using iPSC reprogramming methods.

1. You Z, Al Kindi H, Abdul-Karim A, Barrette PO, Schwertani A. Blocking the urotensin II receptor pathway ameliorates the metabolic syndrome and improves cardiac function in obese mice. FASEB J. 2014 Mar;28(3):1210-20
2. You Z, Liao M, Zhang H, Yang H, Pan X, Houghton JE, Sui SF, Tai PC. Phospholipids induce conformational changes of SecA to form membrane-specific domains: AFM structures and implication on protein-conducting channels. PLoS One. 2013 Aug 16;8
3. You Z, Genest J Jr, Barrette PO, Hafiane A, Behm DJ, D'Orleans-Juste P, Schwertani AG. Genetic and pharmacological manipulation of urotensin II ameliorate the metabolic and atherosclerosis sequalae in mice. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2012 Aug;32(8)
4. Armstrong GA, Liao M, You Z, Lissouba A, Chen BE, Drapeau P. Homology Directed Knockin of Point Mutations in the Zebrafish tardbp and fus Genes in ALS Using the CRISPR/Cas9 System. PLoS One. 2016 Mar 1;11(3)

Faïza Benaliouad has completed her PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Montreal and then continued her research on the neural circuit of reward as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore. Following her fellowship, Faïza joined the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics of McGill University to develop in vivo assays with FRET biosensors to study bias signaling of G-protein coupled receptors and to implement primary neural culture. Currently, Faïza is working within the High-Content Screening (HCS) group to develop assays with iPSCs-derived neural progenitor cells (NPCs) and NPC-derived neurons. She is also doing HCS of compound librairies.

Born and raised in Lebanon, from an early age I was intrigued by science, especially Biology. I was fascinated by the functioning of the human body. This curiosity eventually led me to pursue and obtain my B.Sc. in Biology from Haigazian University (Beirut) in 2015. I was then recruited by the American University of Beirut (AUB) Medical Center - Clinical Genetics Unit. As Medical Laboratory Technologist and later as a Clinical Scientist, I developed various skills in Clinical genetics. My duties included performing Karyotyping, FISH and other Cytogenetics diagnostic techniques on patients’ samples in the context of Oncology and prenatal diseases. In 2020 I joined the Université Saint Joseph Medical Genetics Unit, where I had the opportunity to expand my expertise into a wide range of diagnostic molecular genetics techniques. 2023 was a turning point, when I moved to Canada and started a new chapter in my life. In my pursuit of a new professional challenge, I was given the opportunity to join Dr. Durcan’s team at the Neuro. Acknowledging the importance of the cutting-edge work done in the field of Neuroscience at the Neuro, I look forward to further develop as a scientist and to having a positive impact on the efforts targeting neurodegenerative disorders. I believe that the strategies and philosophy of the Open Science are best suited to address the challenges of modern medicine and provide an excellent model of patient-centered approach.

Before joining The Neuro in February 2017, I had more than two decades of bench work experience in purification and characterization of proteins/enzymes of various origins (for bioconversion of lignocelluloses, indoor airborne allergen monitoring, antibody generation, and cancer treatment drug discovery), as well as in development and Taguchi-based optimization of immunoassays (for quantitation of indoor fungal allergens or cancer biomarkers using sandwich ELISA, high-throughput microarrays, etc.). Over the past twenty years, though the misfolded alpha-synuclein has been implied to play a role in Parkinson disease (PD), there are still some gaps in our knowledge and challenges in finding pharmaceuticals to treat neurodegenerative diseases. Providing high quality purified proteins of interest is my essential task and effective support for our research team and collaboration partners in fighting against PD and other diseases.

1. Benjamin Feller, Aurélie Fallon, Wen Luo, Phuong Trang Nguyen, Irina Shlaifer, Alfred Kihoon Lee, Samer Karkout, Steve Bourgault, Thomas M Durcan, Hideto Takahashi (2023). α-synuclein preformed fibrils bind to β-neurexins and impair β-neurexin-mediated presynaptic organization. bioRxiv 2023.01.28.526024; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.01.28.526024
2. Omid Tavassoly, Esther del Cid Pellitero, Frederique Larroquette, Eddie Cai, Rhalena A. Thomas, Vincent Soubannier, Wen Luo, Thomas M. Durcan, Edward A. Fon (2021) Pharmacological Inhibition of Brain EGFR Activation By a BBB-penetrating Inhibitor, AZD3759, Attenuates α-synuclein Pathology in a Mouse Model of α-Synuclein Propagation. Neurotherapeutics (IF7.62), DOI: 10.1007/s13311-021-01017-6
3. Wen Luo, Mateu Pla-Roca and David Juncker. (2011) Taguchi design-based optimization of sandwich immunoassay microarrays for detecting breast cancer biomarkers. Analytical Chemistry. 83:5767-5774.
4. Wen Luo, Aaron M. Wilson and J. David Miller (2010) Characterization of a 52 kDa exoantigen of Penicillium chrysogenum and monoclonal antibodies suitable for its detection. Mycopathologia 169:15-26.
5. Aaron M. Wilson, Wen Luo and J. David Miller (2009) Using human sera to identify a 52-kDa exoantigen of Penicillium chrysogenum and implications of polyphasic taxonomy of anamorphic Ascomycetes in the study of antigenic proteins. Mycopathologia 168:213-226.

I was born in Belleville, Ontario, and was eager to pursue science in a big city. I moved to Montreal to go to McGill and graduated with my undergraduate degree in Biochemistry in 2023. I joined the EDDU in the summer of 2022 as a trainee for the iPSC and CRISPR team. Since then, I have worked for the ALS team, as a lab helper, and most recently I am working in our new satellite lab at the IRCM (Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal) where we are experimenting with developing other iPSC-derived tissues. The commitment that the EDDU has to Open Science is something that I am pleased to contribute to. This means that the research we are doing here is accessible to scientists globally, creating a collaborative network that has the improvement of patient outcomes as its priority.

1. Transcriptome-based screening in TARDBP/TDP-43 knock-in motor neurons identifies the NEDD8-activating enzyme inhibitor MLN4924 Sarah Lépine, Gilles Maussion, Alexandria Schneider, Angela Nauleau-Javaudin, María José Castellanos-Montiel, Georgina Jiménez Ambriz, Dan Spiegelman, Narges Abdian, Anna Krystina Franco-Flores, Ghazal Haghi, Lale Gursu, Mathilde Chaineau, Thomas Martin Durcan bioRxiv 2024.01.30.578100; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.01.30.578100

I am from Toronto, Ontario and completed my Bachelor’s of Science here at McGill studying Immunology. I have always been interested in translational research and disease modelling. I started my project with the EDDU back in the summer of 2021 as an undergraduate student, focusing on glia and how they are affected in autoimmune disease such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS). I have also been given the opportunity to work alongside experts in disease modelling here at the EDDU to develop improved iPSC protocols to generate oligodendrocytes. In September 2022 I decided to continue working on the project for a Master’s degree, while learning new cutting-edge techniques and all there is to know about under-represented glial cells.

I was born and raised in Mexico City where I finished a Biology Major at National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). During my undergraduate studies, I got the opportunity to do an internship (exciting enough to make me stay for two years) in a lab specialized on stem cells. The project that I was working on required the use of stem cells to model the junction of muscle and motor neurons, the key players involved in the movement of our body. Since I can remember, I have always loved sports. Because of this, I was always fascinated by the processes that allow us to run, swim, or hit a ball. I came to Montréal to start my graduate studies and I currently have the great pleasure of studying motor neurons and muscle. I am happy to know that I can generate knowledge to help people whose mobility has been impaired.

1. Castellanos-Montiel MJ, Chaineau M, Franco-Flores AK, Haghi G, Carrillo-Valenzuela D, Reintsch WE, Chen CX-Q, Durcan TM. An optimized workflow to generate and characterize iPSC-derived motor neuron (MN) spheroids. Cells. 2023;12, 545.
2. Lépine S, Castellanos-Montiel MJ, Durcan TM. TDP-43 dysregulation and neuromuscular junction disruption in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Transl Neurodegener. 2022;11(1):56.
3. Deneault E, Chaineau M, Nicouleau M, Castellanos Montiel MJ, Franco Flores AK, Haghi G, Chen CX, Abdian N, Shlaifer I, Beitel LK, Durcan TM. A streamlined CRISPR workflow to introduce mutations and generate isogenic iPSCs for modeling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Methods. 2022;203:297-310.
4. Castellanos-Montiel MJ, Velasco I, Escobedo-Avila I. Modeling the neuromuscular junction in vitro: an approach to study neuromuscular junction disorders. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2021;1488(1):3-15.
5. Castellanos-Montiel MJ, Chaineau M, Durcan TM. The Neglected Genes of ALS: Cytoskeletal Dynamics Impact Synaptic Degeneration in ALS. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience. 2020;14(380).

From an early age, I have always held a profound interest in the subjects of neuroscience and genetics. Having grown up in a family affected by a rare neurodegenerative disease, it has been a lifelong ambition to research these orphan disorders and better bridge the “bench to beside” link. Prior to starting my PhD at McGill, I graduated from Queen’s University with a BSc in Biology. My PhD project involves investigating the pathophysiology of hypomyelinating leukodystrophies using patient-derived iPSC cellular models.

As a graduate from McMaster University with B.Sc. in Biology and Psychology, Neuroscience & Behavior, I decided to pursue my interest in the application of stem cell technologies in modelling and drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases at the Neuro. I am very excited to join the EDDU team as a research assistant at Dr. Durcan’s lab and hope to continue my professional journey as an M.Sc. IPN student in January 2022.

I have a joint Masters in Translational Neuroscience from Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Previously, I also worked as a Research Assistant at the Center for Prion and Protein Misfolding Diseases in Edmonton, Alberta. Earlier in my career, my interest was primarily in proteopathies in neurodegenerative disorders. During my Masters, my interest expanded to look at neuroimmunology as another potential piece of the neurodegenerative puzzle. During my thesis year, I learned about induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and organoids, and their potential as disease models. This brought me to The Neuro, where I hope to use iPSCs and organoids as tools to develop models of neurodegenerative disorders to study pathological mechanisms and identify potential therapeutic targets. I am invested in Open science because open communication with researchers across the globe can lead to streamlined progress in research. Hopefully, this will eventually lead to better treatment outcomes and increase the quality of life of patients, their loved ones, and caretakers.

Nicolas holds a Master of Science degree in "Biobanking and Complex Data Management" from the Université Côte d'Azur in France and has always been fascinated by research and neuroscience. The desire to apply his biobanking skills and promote Open Science led him to complete an internship at C-BIG before becoming a Research Assistant in January 2023. Nicolas is currently in charge of requests for access to samples and data in the biobank, and responsible for multiple collaborations with various players inside and outside The Neuro.

My scientific journey started with studying spinal cord injuries and antibody treatments for system inflammation. I worked as a Research Technician at the Krembil Research Institute, University Health Network, in Toronto for 8 years, focusing on the assessment of novel therapeutics and diagnostics for Parkinson’s disease in rodents and non-human primate models. I have an M.Sc. in Immunology from Queen's University, where I studied predictive markers of atopic status in umbilical cord blood. I joined the EDDU organoids team in May 2021.

1. Koprich JB, Johnston TH, Reyes G, Omana V, Brotchie JM. (2016). Towards a Non-Human Primate Model of Alpha-Synucleinopathy for Development of Therapeutics for Parkinson's Disease: Optimization of AAV1/2 Delivery Parameters to Drive Sustained Expression of Alpha Synuclein and Dopaminergic Degeneration in Macaque. PLoS One. 2016 Nov 30;11(11).
2. Bao, F, Shultz, SR, Hepburn, JD, Omana, V, Weaver, LC, Cain, DP, Brown, A. (2012). A CD11d monoclonal antibody treatment reduces tissue injury and improves neurological outcome after fluid percussion brain injury in rats. J. Neurotrauma. 2012 Sep 20;29(14):2375-92.
3. Bao, F, Omana, V, Brown, A, Weaver, LC. (2012). The systemic inflammatory response after spinal cord injury in the rat is decreased by alpha4beta1 integrin blockade. J. Neurotrauma. 2012 May 20;29(8):1626-37.
4. Shultz, SR, Bao, F, Omana, V, Chiu, C, Brown, A, Cain, DP. (2012). Repeated mild lateral fluid percussion brain injury in the rat causes cumulative long-term behavioral impairments, neuroinflammation, and cortical loss in an animal model of repeated concussion. J. Neurotrauma. 2012 Jan 20;29(2):281-94.
5. Bao, F, Brown, A, Dekaban, GA, Omana, V, Weaver, LC. (2011). CD11d integrin blockade reduces the systemic inflammatory response syndrome after spinal cord injury. Exp. Neurol. 2011 Oct;231(2):272-83.

I earned my BSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada in 2004. I studied regulation of gene expression in yeast for my honours project at the University of Guelph with Dr. Joseph Yankulov. After travelling to Asia and working as an English teacher, I moved to Montreal and started to pursue an MSc. in Neuroscience at McGill University, working under the supervision of Dr. Philip Barker. I transferred to the PhD program and completed my PhD in Neuroscience in 2016. My thesis focused on two proteins, LGI1 and NgR1 and their functions in neuronal development and degeneration and their genetic links to epilepsy and schizophrenia. I joined Dr. Maurice Chacron in the McGill Department of Physiology as a postdoctoral researcher to work on systems neuroscience in 2017, gaining expertise in computational analysis. I joined Dr. Edward Fon’s group at the Neuro in 2018 to use a combination of computational analysis of biological systems, genetics and cell signalling to study Parkinson’s Disease. I am currently working on analyzing gene expression profiles of individual cells from human 3D tissue models (“mini-brains”) of Parkinson’s disease.

1. Thomas, RA.*, Maussion, G.*, Demirova, I., Gu, G., Cai, E., Chen, C. X., Abdian, N., Strauss, T., Kelaï, S., Nauleau-Javaudin, A., Beitel, L. K., Ramoz, N., Gorwood, P., Durcan, T. M. Auto-qPCR; a python-based web app for automated and reproducible analysis of qPCR data. Sci Rep 11, 21293 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-99727-6
2. Mohamed NV, Sirois J, Ramamurthy J, Mathur M, Lepine P, Deneault E, Maussion G, Nicouleau M, Chen CX, Abdian N, Soubannier V, Cai, E, Nami, H., Thomas, RA, Beitel, LK, Dolt, K.S., Karamchandani, J, Kunath, K., Fon, EA, Durcan, TM. (2021) Midbrain organoids with an SNCA gene triplication model key features of synucleinopathy. BrainComm. Preprint available: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.12.439480v1
3. Chen CX, Abdian N, Maussion G, Thomas RA, Demirova I, Cai E, Tabatabaei M, Beitel LK, Karamchandani J, Fon EA, Durcan TM.A Multistep Workflow to Evaluate Newly Generated iPSCs and Their Ability to Generate Different Cell Types. (2021) Methods Protocols.
4. Thomas RA, Metzen MG, Chacron MJ. Weakly electric fish distinguish between envelope stimuli arising from different behavioral contexts. (2018) Journal of Experimental Biology.
5. Thomas RA, Gibon J, Chen CX, Chierzi S, Soubannier VG, Baulac S, Séguéla P, Murai K, Barker PA. (2018) The Nogo receptor ligand LGI1 regulates synapse number and synaptic activity in hippocampal and cortical neurons. Eneuro.

I obtained my undergraduate degree in Medical Laboratory Technology from Jazan University back home in Saudi Arabia in 2015. Following my bachelor’s degree, I got a scholarship from the Ministry of Education to study abroad and complete my graduate degree. I came to Canada in 2016 to first study English courses that would assist me in my adventure in graduate studies. I am superMom for a lovely son (Rakan). He is nine years old and has accompanied me during my adventure in Canada. I recently obtained my master’s degree from the Department of Pathology. I am so glad to be a member of McGill University, especially in the Neuro. My goal is to learn more about the most recent research areas since this will help me a lot in my future career.

After I completed my MSc studies in Pharmaceutical Sciences at Université de Montréal, I joined the Early Drug Discovery Unit and the Neuroimmunology Unit at the Neuro as a PhD student in 2019. Under the supervision of Drs. Durcan and Healy, my PhD project focuses on the role of microglia in Parkinson’s disease. Using iPSC-derived microglia, I hope that I can contribute to better understanding the role of neuroinflammation in Parkinson’s disease and to finding promising therapeutic targets.

Having a career in research has been a dream for me ever since high school. I started my training in the Laboratory Technology program of the CEGEP of Saint-Hyacinthe. I then completed an undergraduate degree in cellular and molecular biology at the University of Sherbrooke and had the opportunity to complete multiple paid internships in various research fields. I am currently studying medicine and neuroscience in McGill’s MDCM & PhD joint program to become a clinician-scientist. I first joined the Neuro's EDDU as a summer student and I am now pursuing the PhD portion of my program under the supervision of Dr Thomas Durcan. My PhD project aims to gain further insights into the cellular processes that are perturbed in human motor neurons with mutations associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

1. Michell-Robinson, M.A., Lépine, S. (2021, January 14). Reader Response: Association of Age at Onset and First Symptoms with Disease Progression in Patients with Metachromatic Leukodystrophy [Letter to the Editor]. Neurology, 96(2):e255-e266. Comment URL: https://n.neurology.org/content/96/2/e255
2. Hintermayer, M.*, Lépine, S.*, Chen, O.* (2021) Chapter 5 : Standardized Testing – The CASPer. In M.J. Eisenberg & A.L. Cox (Eds.), The Essential MD-PhD Guide (1st Edition, pp.33-39). McGraw Hill.
3. M'Callum, M., Raggi, C., Lépine, S., Legault, L., McGraw, S., & Paganelli, M. (2018). Improving the quality of stem cell-derived hepatocytes for cell therapy: Role of pluripotency state in determining lineage commitment of human induced pluripotent stem cells. Cytotherapy, 20(5), S112. Doi: 10.1016/j.jcyt.2018.02.333
4. Shrednick, M., Usongo, V., Lépine, S., Janvier, X., Archambault, M., & Gentilini, E. (2018). Characterization of Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from mastitis bovine milk in Argentina, J Dairy Res, 85(1):57-63. Doi:10.1017/S0022029917000851
5. Raggi, C., Mangahas, C., M’Callum, M., Raad, S., Lépine, S., Pham, T.Q., & Paganelli, M. (2017). Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) from small volume peripheral blood samples for in vitro modeling and cell therapy of pediatric liver diseases. Dig Liver Dis, 49(4):e251-e252. doi:10.1016/j.dld.2017.09.026

Originally from Calgary, Alberta, I came to McGill to study science . . . and made Montréal my home. With both a B.Sc. (Honours) and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from McGill, I learned molecular biology and cell culture techniques along the way. As a Post-doctoral Fellow and Research Scientist at the Lady Davis Institute (Jewish General Hospital), I carried out research on the structure, function and genetics of the androgen receptor. Interestingly, mutations in the androgen receptor protein can lead to a neurodegenerative disease called spinal bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA or Kennedy’s disease), cause androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), and are associated with prostate cancer. I believe science has a life cycle: we do the research, then write the papers, to get the funding, to do the research . . . Since joining the NeuroEDDU in 2017, my main job is to help my colleagues write and edit applications for funding and articles for publication. The Open Science policy at The Neuro means that the methods and research results published by the Neuro EDDU will be available for all. Fun facts: I enjoy decorating cakes, photographing flowers and travelling.

1. X-Q Chen, C., Deneault, E., Abdian, N., You, Z., Sirois, J., Nicouleau, M., Shlaifer, I., Villegas, L., Boivin, M. N., Gaborieau, L., Karamchandani, J., Beitel, L. K., Fon, E. A., & Durcan, T. M. (2022). Generation of patient-derived pluripotent stem cell-lines and CRISPR modified isogenic controls with mutations in the Parkinson's associated GBA gene. Stem cell research, 64, 102919. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scr.2022.102919
2. Chen, C. X., Abdian, N., Maussion, G., Thomas, R. A., Demirova, I., Cai, E., Tabatabaei, M., Beitel, L. K., Karamchandani, J., Fon, E. A., & Durcan, T. M. (2021). A Multistep Workflow to Evaluate Newly Generated iPSCs and Their Ability to Generate Different Cell Types. Methods and protocols, 4(3), 50. https://doi.org/10.3390/mps4030050
3. Mohamed, N. V., Larroquette, F., Beitel, L. K., Fon, E. A., & Durcan, T. M. (2019). One Step Into the Future: New iPSC Tools to Advance Research in Parkinson's Disease and Neurological Disorders. Journal of Parkinson's disease, 9(2), 265–281. https://doi.org/10.3233/JPD-181515
4. Beitel, L. K., Alvarado, C., Mokhtar, S., Paliouras, M., & Trifiro, M. (2013). Mechanisms mediating spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy: investigations into polyglutamine-expanded androgen receptor function and dysfunction. Frontiers in neurology, 4, 53. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2013.00053
5. Gottlieb, B., Beitel, L. K., Nadarajah, A., Paliouras, M., & Trifiro, M. (2012). The androgen receptor gene mutations database: 2012 update. Human mutation, 33(5), 887–894. https://doi.org/10.1002/humu.22046

I am from Mexico and arrived in Canada a few years ago to do my bachelor´s degree at McGill, majoring in Biochemistry. My journey at the EDDU started during my last summer as an undergraduate. I was in the ALS team helping with the projects being developed using motor neurons. This was my first real life research experience, and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to stay once the new semester started and work on my own project. Now I just graduated and was given the opportunity to continue here at the EDDU, this time as part of the Neurodevelopment team. I am excited to continue learning from this amazing team and look forward to what the future will bring.

I am a research associate in the Neurodegenerative Disorders Group (Neural Survival) at the Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University. I received my BSc from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and my PhD in Biomedical Sciences from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, in collaboration with the Biomedical Imaging and Instrumentation Group (BiiG), Madrid, Spain. In 2014, I joined the Neuro as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Hamel’s Laboratory of Cerebrovascular Research and, in 2019, I became part of Dr. Durcan’s lab and member of the Neuro's EDDU. During my early career, I focused my work on the vascular and disconnection hypotheses in Alzheimer’s disease trying to comprehend the role of vascular dysfunction and white matter inflammation in this multifaceted disease, working on clinical and preclinical research projects. Now I am involved in the fascinating field of iPSCs and “mini brains”, hoping to find some targetable mechanisms for therapies in Parkinson’s disease.

1. Lecrux, C., Sandoe, C. H., Neupane, S., Kropf, P., Toussay, X., Tong, X. K., Lacalle-Aurioles, M., Shmuel, A., & Hamel, E. (2017). Impact of Altered Cholinergic Tones on the Neurovascular Coupling Response to Whisker Stimulation. The Journal of neuroscience: the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 37(6), 1518–1531. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1784-16.2016
2. Lacalle-Aurioles, M., Navas-Sánchez, F. J., Alemán-Gómez, Y., Olazarán, J., Guzmán-De-Villoria, J. A., Cruz-Orduña, I., Mateos-Pérez, J. M., & Desco, M. (2016). The Disconnection Hypothesis in Alzheimer's Disease Studied Through Multimodal Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Structural, Perfusion, and Diffusion Tensor Imaging. Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD, 50(4), 1051–1064. https://doi.org/10.3233/JAD-150288
3. Lacalle-Aurioles, M., Mateos-Pérez, J. M., Guzmán-De-Villoria, J. A., Olazarán, J., Cruz-Orduña, I., Alemán-Gómez, Y., Martino, M. E., & Desco, M. (2014). Cerebral blood flow is an earlier indicator of perfusion abnormalities than cerebral blood volume in Alzheimer's disease. Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism: official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, 34(4), 654–659. https://doi.org/10.1038/jcbfm.2013.241
4. Lacalle-Aurioles, M., Alemán-Gómez, Y., Guzmán-De-Villoria, J. A., Cruz-Orduña, I., Olazarán, J., Mateos-Pérez, J. M., Martino, M. E., & Desco, M. (2013). Is the cerebellum the optimal reference region for intensity normalization of perfusion MR studies in early Alzheimer's disease?. PloS one, 8(12), e81548. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0081548
5. Martino, M. E., de Villoria, J. G., Lacalle-Aurioles, M., Olazarán, J., Cruz, I., Navarro, E., García-Vázquez, V., Carreras, J. L., & Desco, M. (2013). Comparison of different methods of spatial normalization of FDG-PET brain images in the voxel-wise analysis of MCI patients and controls. Annals of nuclear medicine, 27(7), 600–609. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-013-0723-7

As someone who is always passionate about science, I passed my Bachelor’s degree in the field of Cell & Molecular Biology Genetics and in 2019 I moved to Canada to pursue my Master’s degree in this field of research at the university of Manitoba. While I faced with different challenges in the middle of my way, I am proud I ended up joining Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU) at McGill University and became part of ALS team. As a Research Assistant at Neuro, I am working on human Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) to generate different neuronal cells and help to discover novel treatments for patients suffering from neurodegenerative disorders.

I was born and raised in Istanbul and came to Montreal to do my undergrad at McGill University in Pharmacology. I joined the EDDU as an undergrad student in the summer of 2021, working with the ALS team. I have been a part of the ALS team since then and have worked on different projects. I graduated from McGill in 2022, and I was given the opportunity to continue here at the EDDU, working with patient-derived cells and generating neurons for studies in ALS.

Since the beginning of my doctoral research, my long-term goal has been to elucidate the mechanisms of neurological diseases and to seek possible cures. After completing PhD at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, I joined The Neuro as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Peter McPherson’s lab in 2012, where my research focused on membrane trafficking and neurodevelopmental disorders. I have been working with stem cells since 2016. I joined the Neuro's EDDU as a research associate in 2017. I work in the group of Discovery Assays and Screens, and I serve as the leader of Parkinson’s disease/synucleinopathies team. I am specialized in using iPSC-derived neurons to develop assays for Parkinson’s disease-related drug discovery and using cerebral organoid cultures to model neurodevelopmental disorders.

1. Han, C., Chaineau, M., Chen, C. X., Beitel, L. K., & Durcan, T. M. (2018). Open Science Meets Stem Cells: A New Drug Discovery Approach for Neurodegenerative Disorders. Frontiers in neuroscience, 12, 47. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.00047
2. Han C, Alkhater R, Froukh T, et al. Epileptic Encephalopathy Caused by Mutations in the Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factor DENND5A. Am J Hum Genet. 2016;99(6):1359-1367. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.10.006
3. Han C, Lu Y, Wei Y, Wu B, Liu Y, He R. D-ribosylation induces cognitive impairment through RAGE-dependent astrocytic inflammation. Cell Death Dis. 2014;5(3):e1117. Published 2014 Mar 13. doi:10.1038/cddis.2014.89
4. Tong Z*, Han C*, Qiang M, et al. Age-related formaldehyde interferes with DNA methyltransferase function, causing memory loss in Alzheimer's disease. Neurobiol Aging. 2015;36(1):100-110. doi:10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2014.07.018. (*Equal contribution)

I was born in Brazil and have always been passionate about travel and experiencing new cultures. Most of my career has been in hospitality and customer service, but I have recently decided to change careers to Marketing in order to work in a different industry. Having decided to study Digital Marketing and French in Montreal, I joined the Training and Outreach team in May 2023 and am delighted to share our new research and discoveries with anyone who is interested.

I was born and raised right here in Montréal. My undergraduate studies were done at McGill in Pharmacology & Therapeutics during which time I had a research project at The Neuro with the main goal of developing a method to use suicide gene therapy for chordoma, a rare type of tumour that forms along the spinal cord. Currently, I am a graduate student in the IPN program at McGill. My project focuses on the role of inflammation in Parkinson’s Disease and its link with the gut-brain axis through the use of iPSC-derived midbrain organoids and probiotic-derived secretomes. I’ve loved the sciences for as long as I could remember. For this, I have my parents to thank – who are in the medical field – and the innate nature of science itself, as its purpose is to understand how the world works whether we can see it or not. The building blocks to advance research and science will be the cooperation between different colleagues and teams and this is what Open Science is all about. In my spare time, I enjoy watching and/or playing any and all sports, studying chess strategy, and reading.

I am a Research Assistant in the Organoids and Tissue-Engineering group and currently leading the node of Organoids Maintenance and Quality Control. In 2015, I obtained my Biotechnology Engineering degree from India. I gained research experience at the Defence Research and Development Organisation, India and Panacea Biotech Ltd. In 2017, I obtained my MSc Biotechnology from McGill University. During my master’s, I interned with Dr. Nguyen-Vi Mohamed to set up and develop the organoids platform with the support of Dr. Thomas Durcan at the EDDU. Fascinated by my internship project, I joined the EDDU in 2018 to focus on generating different types of organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells to study neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. Part of my work involves optimization and troubleshooting different protocols to generate a more uniform model. During this time, I published in the MNI open research journal, discussing the method to generate human midbrain organoids from iPSC. In addition, I coordinate organoid generation training and oversee maintaining, tracking and managing resources for organoids. Apart from research, I love theatre. I used to perform street plays in India so if I use my street play voice, you'll be able to hear me clearly, even at a two-block distance.

1. Mohamed NV, Mathur M, da Silva RV et al (2021) Generation of human midbrain organoids from induced pluripotent stem cells. MNI Open Res.
2. Mohamed NV, Lépine P, Lacalle-Aurioles M, Sirois J, Mathur M, Reintsch W, Beitel LK, Fon EA, Durcan TM.( 2021) Microfabricated disk technology: rapid scale up in midbrain organoid generation. Methods, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymeth.2021.07.008
3. Mohamed N.V, Julien Sirois, Janani Ramamurthy, Meghna Mathur, Paula Lepine, Eric Deneault, Gilles Maussion, Michael Nicouleau, Carol X.-Q. Chen, Narges Abdian, Vincent Soubannier, Eddie Cai, Harris Nami, Rhalena Thomas, Mahdieh Tabatabaei, Lenore K. Beitel, Jason Karamchandani, Tilo Kunath, Edward A. Fon, Thomas M. Durcan. (2021) Midbrain organoids with an SNCA gene triplication model key features of synucleinopathy. Brain Comm. Preprint available: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.12.439480v1
4. Imanbekova, Meruyert; Suarasan, Sorina; Rojalin, Tatu; Mizenko, Rachel; Hilt, Silvia; Mathur, Meghna; Lepine, Paula; Nicouleau, Michael; Mohamed, Nguyen-Vi; Durcan, Thomas; Carney, Randy; Voss, John; Wachsmann-Hogiu, Sebastian, “Identification of amyloid beta in small extracellular vesicles via Raman spectroscopy”, Nanoscale Advances journal. Doi : 10.1039/D1NA00330E

Dr. Nguyen-Vi Mohamed did her Ph.D at University of Montreal, on tau pathology spreading in Alzheimer’s disease. Interested by the similarities that shared misfolded proteins in Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease (PD), she joined Dr. Fon’s laboratory for her postdoc. She implemented the brain organoids technology at the Montreal Neurological Institute (The Neuro) in order to investigate the pathological mechanisms leading to the spreading of Parkinson’s disease within the brain.

1. Mohamed N.V, Paula Lépine, Maria la Calle, Julien Sirois, Meghna Mathur, Wolfgang Reintsch, Lenore K. Beitel, Edward A. Fon, Thomas M. Durcan. (2021) Microfabricated disk technology: rapid scale up in midbrain organoid generation. In press in Methods. Preprint available: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.31.446446v1
2. Imanbekova, Meruyert; Suarasan, Sorina; Rojalin, Tatu; Mizenko, Rachel; Hilt, Silvia; Mathur, Meghna; Lepine, Paula; Nicouleau, Michael; Mohamed, Nguyen-Vi; Durcan, Thomas; Carney, Randy; Voss, John; Wachsmann-Hogiu, Sebastian. (2021) Identification of amyloid beta in small extracellular vesicles via Raman spectroscopy. Nanoscale Advances journal. Doi : 10.1039/D1NA00330E
3. Mohamed N.V, Julien Sirois, Janani Ramamurthy, Meghna Mathur, Paula Lepine, Eric Deneault, Gilles Maussion, Michael Nicouleau, Carol X.-Q. Chen, Narges Abdian, Vincent Soubannier, Eddie Cai, Harris Nami, Rhalena Thomas, Mahdieh Tabatabaei, Lenore K. Beitel, Jason Karamchandani, Tilo Kunath, Edward A. Fon, Thomas M. Durcan. (2021) Midbrain organoids with an SNCA gene triplication model key features of synucleinopathy. Brain Comm. Preprint available: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.12.439480v1
4. Mohamed N.V, Meghna Mathur, Ronan V. Da Silva, Lenore K. Beitel, Edward A. Fon, Thomas M. Durcan. (2019) Generation of human midbrain organoids from induced pluripotent stem cells. MNI Open Science Journal. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/GF39H
5. Mohamed N.V, Larroquette F., et al. (2019) One step into the future: new iPSC tools to advance research in Parkinson’s disease and neurological disorders. Journal of Parkinson’s disease.

Growing up in a medical environment, I became aware of health issues and of the necessity of new discoveries to continually improve our living conditions and those of our loved ones facing diseases. From this, the desire to pursue a career in basic research made its way. Originally from Haiti, I started my biomedical studies at the Université de Montréal. After my master’s degree in the field of osteoarthritis (OA), I pursued my PhD in Neuroscience at the CR-CHUM under the supervision of Dr. Adriana Di Polo. There, I studied the molecular mechanisms underlying morphological changes of acutely injured adult retinal neurons. Subsequently, I continued my research as a post-doctoral fellow at The Neuro in the lab of Dr. Alyson Fournier where I sought to understand the influence of the inflammation on neurodegeneration and axonal repair in Multiple Sclerosis. I am currently continuing my journey in neuroscience as a Research Associate at the EDDU. Here, I hope to contribute in deciphering the mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental disorders by using cutting edge human-derived organoids (mini-brains).

1. Morquette B*, Juźwik CA*, Drake SS, Charabati M, Zhang Y, Lécuyer MA, Galloway DA, Dumas A, de Faria Junior O, Paradis-Isler N, Bueno M, Rambaldi I, Zandee S, Moore C, Bar-Or A, Vallières L, Prat A, Fournier AE. MicroRNA-223 protects neurons from degeneration in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Brain. 2019 Oct 1;142(10):2979-2995. * co-first authors
2. Girouard MP, Simas T, Hua L, Morquette B, Khazaei MR, Unsain N, Johnstone AD, Rambaldi I, Sanz RL, Di Raddo ME, Gamage KK, Yong Y, Willis DE, Verge VMK, Barker PA, Deppmann C, Fournier AE. Collapsing Response Mediator Protein 4 (CRMP4) Facilitates Wallerian Degeneration and Axon Regeneration following Sciatic Nerve Injury. eNeuro. 2020 Mar 2;7(2):ENEURO.0479-19.2020.
3. Juźwik CA, Drake S, Lécuyer MA, Johnson RM, Morquette B, Zhang Y, Charabati M, Sagan SM4, Bar-Or A, Prat A, Fournier AE. Neuronal microRNA regulation in Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis. Sci Rep. 2018 Sep 7;8(1):13437
4. Andrew Kaplan, Barbara Morquette, Antje Kroner, SooYuen Leong, Carolin Madwar, Sara L. Banerjee, Jack Antel, Nicolas Bisson, Samuel David, Alyson E. Fournier. Small molecule stabilization of 14-3-3 protein-protein interactions stimulate axon regeneration. Neuron. 2017 Mar 8;93(5):1082-1093
5. Morquette B, Morquette P, Agostinone J, Feinstein E, McKinney AR, Kolta A, Di Polo A, (2015). REDD2-Mediated Inhibition of mTORC1 Promotes Dendrite Retraction Induced by Axonal Injury in Vivo. Cell death and differentiation (Nature publishing group) Apr;22 (4):612-25

I am originally from New Zealand, but have grown up in Toronto and moved to Montreal in 2019 to do my undergrad at McGill. I am majoring in Cognitive Science, which is the interdisciplinary field between neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, computer science and linguistics. I am fascinated by human cognition and I believe that integrating knowledge from all of these different fields will help me develop a deeper understanding of the mind. I started working at the EDDU in the summer of 2021 as an assistant on the Communications and Outreach team alongside my wonderful colleague Luisa Pimentel. I am in charge of managing the EDDU’s website, data portal, and our new collections of iPSC protocol videos on YouTube, as well as filming and editing content for the lab. My work helps to promote Open Science by making the EDDU’s research available online in many different languages so that researchers around the world can access it. I am lucky to be able to witness the amazing research being done at the EDDU, and I look forward to sharing more of it with the world! Besides working at the EDDU, I enjoy playing ultimate frisbee, camping, snowboarding, and spending time in Parc la Fontaine with a good book.

I am originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where I discovered the fascinating field of Neuroscience. I moved to Canada to continue my studies in Alzheimer's Disease and in my 10th year in Montréal, I joined the EDDU as a Research Assistant to work in the exciting fields of iPSCs and CRISPR gene editing. In April 2021, I took a new challenge: I became EDDU's Project Coordinator for Training and Outreach Programs. In my current role, I am responsible for creating content for training and outreach initiatives at the EDDU as well as organizing training and outreach events. We offer both open-science activities that are aimed towards iPSC researchers and also ones that are designed for the general public. Working at the EDDU means having access to cutting-edge technology while being part of a collaborative team that works to further the progress on Drug Discovery. As I am a firm believer in "giving back", it is a pleasure to be part of the Open Science initiative and to be building partnerships to benefit patients worldwide. I am also very happy to be collaborating with researchers in Brazil. I am excited to be part of the future advances in Neuroscience. In order to keep on track with my goals at the EDDU, I practice Yoga daily and I meditate almost every day.

1. Maussion Gilles, Rocha Cecilia, Pimentel Luisa, Beitel Lenore and Durcan Thomas (2021) Human induced pluripotent stem cell-based studies; a new route toward modeling autism spectrum disorders. In book: iPSCs for Modeling Central Nervous System Disorders (pp.37-81), doi: 10.1016/B978-0-323-85764-2.00007-7
2. Pimentel LS; Allard S; Weinreb O; Danik M; Hanzel CE; Youdim M and Cuello AC. (2015) The Multi-target Drug M30 Shows Pro-cognitive and Anti-inflammatory Effects in a Rat Model of Alzheimer's Disease. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
3. Hanzel CE; Pichet-Binette A; Pimentel LS; Iulita MF; Allard S; Ducantenzeiler A; Do Carmo S and Cuello AC (2014) Neuronal driven pre-plaque inflammation in a transgenic rat model of Alzheimer’s disease. Neurobiol Aging. doi:: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2014.03.026.
4. Castro NG; Costa RS; Pimentel LS; Danuello, A; Romeiro NC; Viegas-Junior C; Barreiro EJ; Fraga CAM; Bolzani VS; Rocha MS. (2008) CNS-selective noncompetitive cholinesterase inhibitors derived from the naturalpiperidine alkaloid (-)-spectaline. Eur J Pharmacol.
5. Viegas-Junior C; Bolzani VS; Pimentel LS; Castro NG; Cabral RF; Costa RS; Rocha MS; Young MCM; Barreiro EJ; Fraga CAM. (2005) New Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors Designed from Natural Piperidine Alkaloids. Bioorg Med Chem.

Originally from Bogota, Colombia, I am a U.S citizen with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience. I arrived in 2017 to McGill University’s Integrated Program of Neuroscience to obtain my master’s degree in neuroscience. I did my research thesis at the EDDU which involved using CRISPR/Cas9 technology on cell lines to understand the protein interaction of Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 3 and its parkinsonian phenotype. Throughout my academic career, I’ve matured intellectually and learned more specific and complex biological concepts of the brain. I have now evolved into a research assistant carrying out the oversight of the laboratory’s reagents and contributing as a helping hand with labmate’s projects. I am proud to say I ma contributing to scientific progress and making an impact in the scientific community and the world.