Cohort - 001
ALLARD LAB
PI: Dr. Joanne Allard
Hosting: TBD
Location: Howard University - COM
Joanne Allard’s lab at Howard University College of Medicine investigates the neuroprotective mechanisms of physical exercise. Studies utilize multidisciplinary techniques to investigate how age, genetic variants, and diet modify exercise-induced neurophysiological adaptations. Special focus is placed on the role of APOE, the major genetic variant associated with AD in neuronal and glial cell interactions. Projects primarily utilize transgenic mouse models but also include collaborations with clinical faculty to study exercise effects in older adults at increased genetic risk for neurodegenerative disease. Fellows in the Allard lab would focus on automated programming for behavioral assessments, stereological analyses of cell morphology using immunostaining, and proteomic analyses.
MISIAK LAB
PI: Dr. Magdalena Misiak-Christian
Hosting: Maurice Wade
Location: Howard University - COM
Magdalena Misiak-Christian’s lab in the Howard University Department of Physiology focuses on cellular, molecular, and metabolic biology approaches to develop early novel biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), and to better understand the aging process in the brain. Her group is part of the Translational Neuroscience Lab, a joint initiative with clinical researchers to establish libraries of tissues and cultured human primary neural progenitor cells derived non-invasively from participants’ olfactory mucosa. Fellows in the Misiak lab would be involved in transcriptomic and proteomic data design and analysis targeting the selection of prospective, protective factors in the presence of the well-known risk factor for AD – Apolipoprotein E allele 4.
COBOS LAB
PI: Dr. Inma Cobos
Hosting: Jheannelle Johnson
Location: Stanford University - SOM
Inma Cobos’ lab at Stanford University Medical Center uses state-of-the-art cellular and molecular technologies to advance the understanding of Alzheimer's Disease and related dementias. As a trained physician scientist and neuropathologist, she heads a lab using single-cell and spatial methods to human brain tissue to dissect the contributions of distinct cell types to these diseases. In particular, her lab has identified cell types that are selectively vulnerable to neuropathology and overal survivability in neurological disease Computational Fellows in the Cobos lab would be charged with applying and developing state-of-the-art workflows, algorithms, and machine learning approaches to link multimodal single-cell and spatial data from human tissue to disease-associated phenotypes.
PHATNANI LAB
PI: Dr. Hemali Phatnani
Hosting: Brhan Gebremedhin
Location: Columbia University - NYGC
Hemali Phatnani’s lab at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the New York Genome Center interrogates cellular signatures in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Frontotemporal Dementia, and aging. Her lab pioneered the use of genome-wide spatial approaches to uncover regional changes in cell type signatures through the progression of diseases such as ALS. Currently, her lab profiles human brain tissue, mouse tissue, and stem cell models, with the goal of identifying altered spatial signatures in neurodegenerative diseases and aging. Fellows in the Phatnani lab would work to develop and apply new algorithms for spatial transcriptomics and proteomics analysis, and integration of this data with other large-scale genomics data sets.
JIANG LAB
PI: Dr. Jenny Jiang
Hosting: Jodi-Ann Richards
Location: UPENN - SOE
Jenny Jiang's lab at the University of Pennsylvania studies dysregulation of the immune system through novel methods in systems immunology. Using high-throughput sequencing, single-cell, and phenotypic cell-cell interaction screening approaches, her lab answers questions about how the immune system changes with age, in autoimmune disease, tumor biology, and neurological disease. In parallel, the lab has also established methods to identify biomarkers for disease progression and prognosis, as well as potential immunomodulatory approaches for therapeutics. Fellows in the Jiang lab would work on immune system genomics and T-cell receptor sequence data, with the goal of extracting key cell type signatures altered in aging and disease.
TU LAB
PI: Dr. Tsang-Wei Tu
Hosting: Essiet-Adidiong Ette
Location: Howard University
Tsang-Wei Tu’s lab at the Howard University integrates multidisciplinary techniques, including imaging, computational, molecular, and behavioral approaches to understand the mechanisms of brain injury-induced tissue damage and subsequent metabolic disorders associated with neurological diseases. The current research projects fall into two areas: (1) Preclinical MRI of traumatic brain injury (TBI), cardiac arrest, and diabetic retinopathy, (2) High-throughput image analysis of MRI and immunohistochemistry in brain tissue using machine learning approaches. Computational Fellows in the Tu lab would be involved with analysis of imaging data, including MRI and microscopic images, with the ultimate goal of quantifying the critical features of abnormality following TBI and other neurological diseases.
NWULIA LAB
PI: Dr. Evaristus Nwulia
Hosting: Maurice Wade
Location: Howard University - COM
Evaristus Nwulia heads the Sociome, Cognitive, Chemosensory and Neurophysiology (SCCN) lab at Howard University, with the goal of characterizing mechanisms of neural adaptations of humans to environmental exposures. His lab studies longitudinal acquisition of behaviors, social exposures, cognitive and olfactory task performance, biochemical stress and sleep physiology markers, autonomic measures, structural and functional neuroimaging, event-related EEG, and epigenomic markers to link environmental exposures to neuropsychiatric outcomes. The lab also develops sensory neuromodulation devices to study the effects of modulating hubs in brain networks on disease outcomes. Fellow roles include applying deep learning algorithms linking circadian and longitudinal variations in neurophysiological measures and disease outcomes.