SCIENTIFIC ADVISORS OF THE WEBINAR SERIES
ORGANIZERS OF THE WEBINAR SERIES
ORGANIZERS OF THE WEBINAR SERIES
SATISH BODAKUNTLA
Postdoctoral researcher
Satish is a Post-doctoral researcher studying molecular mechanisms governing axon branch formation in the Mizuno lab at NHLBI, NIH.
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Satish pursued his Bachelors and Masters at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), where he worked with Dr. Mayurika Lahiri to investigate the activation of DNA-damage surveillance pathways in response to alkylating agents.
Later, intrigued by the concept of tubulin posttranslational modifications (PTMs), as emerging regulators of microtubule cytoskeleton and their role in a number of human pathologies, he joined Dr. Carsten Janke’s lab at Institut Curie, France for his PhD.
SHAHRNAZ KEMAL
Postdoctoral researcher
Shahrnaz is a research fellow in the lab of Meng-meng Fu at NIH/NINDS in Bethesda, MD. Her research interests include cytoskeletal dynamics of neurons and oligodendrocytes in the context of neurodegenerative disorders. She did her postdoc at Northwestern University in Bob Vassar’s lab, studying cellular and molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer’s Disease in mouse models. For her graduate studies, she attended Columbia University where she focused on the role of motor proteins in brain development in Richard Vallee’s lab.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shahrnaz-kemal-phd-0474aa14
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShahrnazKemal
OLIVER VINZENZ GLOMB
Postdoctoral researcher
I still remember visualizing the fast movement of secretory vesicles in a tiny budding yeast cell. This unforgettable moment caught my curiosity to understand how the cytoskeleton contributes to cellular transport mechanisms and ultimately shapes a eukaryotic cell. Trained as a biochemist and cell biologist, I graduated from the Johnsson Lab at Um University, Germany, where I contributed to better understand how polarity proteins organize a local actin cytoskeletal network to direct polar outgrowth. Encouraged by my findings, I joined the Yogev Lab at Yale University in January 2020, to investigate how the neuronal cytoskeleton contributes to shape, integrity and function of neurons in a living worm. I am highly intrigued of the dynamic and complex organization by which the ensemble of cytoskeletal proteins contributes to neuronal function.
MENG-MENG FU
Principal Investigator
Meng-meng completed her Ph.D. training in the laboratory of Erika Holzbaur at UPenn, focusing on axonal transport, and her postdoc training in the laboratory of Ben Barres at Stanford, focusing on oligodendrocyte cell biology.
Meng-meng recently started her own lab at NINDS (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke) at NIH, which focuses on mRNA transport and microtubule organization by Golgi outposts in oligodendrocytes.
BILJANA ERMANOSKA
Postdoctoral researcher
Actin is the most abundant presynaptic cytoskeletal protein, implicated in synaptic functions ranging from vesicle mobilization and trafficking to synapse morphogenesis and stability. I am interested in identifying components and regulators of the presynaptic actin cytoskeleton. As a postdoctoral researcher in the Rodal Lab at Brandeis University, I am deconstructing the presynaptic actin at the Drosophila larval neuromuscular junction as a model synapse, one actin-binding protein at a time. Numerous actin-binding proteins are involved in neurological disorders, thus understanding how they control the presynaptic actin and synaptic function is of both mechanistic and potentially therapeutic importance.
Previous members of the Organizing team
LISA LANDSKRON
Postdoctoral researcher
Following her PhD in developmental neurobiology at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology Austria (IMBA) in the lab of Jürgen Knoblich, Lisa joined the Netherlands Cancer Institute as postdoctoral Erwin Schrödinger Fellow. In the group of Thijn Brummelkamp, she is using genetic approaches to study regulators of the cytoskeleton.
Twitter account: https://twitter.com/lisa_landskron
