Lectures and seminars Center for Alzheimer Research: Opponent lecture with Tarja Malm, University of Eastern Finland and Mark Cunningham, University of Dublin
Please join the Center for Alzheimer Research for a lecture in our series "Opponent lectures".
In connection with PhD student Giusy Pizzirusso's dissertation, we invite you to an open opponent lecture.
Host and chair: Luis Enrique Arroyo-Garcia, Divison of Neurogeriatrics, NVS.
Tarja Malm, Professor of Molecular Neurobiology, Biocenter Kuopio, University of Eastern Finland
"Biopsies from iNPH Patients as a Window to the Events of Early Alzheimer’s Disease"
Tarja Malm is Professor in Molecular Neurobiology and the head of the Neuroinflammation research group at the A.I. Virtanen Institute, University of Eastern Finland. She is also the head of the “In vitro and ex vivo electrophysiology core facility” belonging to the Biocenter Kuopio and Biocenter Finland. She obtained her PhD in 2006 in Neurobiology with the focus glial cell biology and carried out her postdoctoral training at the Case Western Reserve University, USA. Her research focuses on understanding microglia-neuron signalling. Her group uses interdisciplinary approaches and develops novel, human based models to find therapeutic strategies to combat brain diseases. Her research group has pioneered development of methodologies to differentiate microglia and microglia containing cerebral organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells. In the past years, her research group has established methodologies to evaluate neuronal circuit functionalities from cortical biopsies obtained from patients of idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) offering a novel source to study AD-related events at the molecular, functional and structural level.
Mark Cunningham, Professor of Neurophysiology of Epilepsy, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin
"Human-Derived Brain Tissue as an Epilepsy Model"
Professor Mark Cunningham is Head of Discipline of Physiology and the Ellen Mayston Bates Professor of Neurophysiology of Epilepsy at Trinity College Dublin. His research is focused on understanding the basis of neurological and psychiatric disease at the level of the neuronal microcircuit and in particular in the context of organised electrical activity generated by the brain. Prof. Cunningham obtained his PhD in Physiology from the University of Bristol, examining the impact of anti-epileptic drugs on synaptic function. He then undertook post-doctoral positions on projects focusing on the mechanisms underlying the generation of various types of neuronal oscillations using a combination of electrophysiological, pharmacological and transgenic mouse models. In 2005 he was awarded an RCUK Academic Fellowship at Newcastle University. In 2007 alongside Prof. Miles Whittington he founded the first UK research platform for conducting electrophysiological recordings from live human brain tissue ex vivo in Newcastle with support from the Wolfson Foundation. In 2016 he was appointed as Professor of Neuronal Dynamics at the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University and maintains a visiting Professorship at Newcastle University.