LAB MEMBERS
Professor Frances Edwards
Education:
Australian National University
Max Plank Institute for Biophysical Chemistry
Gottingen, Germany
PhD, Neurophysiology | 1990
University of Sydney
MSc, Pharmacology | 1984
University of Sydney
BSc Hons, Pharmacology | 1980
Bio:
Frances Edwards graduated in Pharmacology at the University of Sydney, Australia and received her PhD whilst working at the Max-Planck Institute in Germany under the Nobel Prize winner, Prof. Bert Sakmann. After staying on as a postdoctoral fellow in Sakmann's lab, in 1990 she joined David Colquhoun’s group in Pharmacology at UCL as a Wellcome European Fellow. After returning to Australia in 1992 Frances held a Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellowship at the University of Sydney from 1993 until 1996. In 1996 she joined the Department of Physiology at UCL. Until 2010 the focus of the Edwards lab was mechanisms of fast synaptic transmission and the role of dendritic spines in plasticity using electrophysiology and confocal imaging. In 2010 the research direction largely shifted to research on Alzheimer's disease, studying several transgenic mouse models of human mutations in the amyloid pathway or microtubule-associated protein tau. Recently improved knock-in models have been developed and these are now the focus of the lab.
Teaching:
In 1997, Frances Edwards and Maria Fitzgerald set up the MSc Neuroscience at UCL which Edwards then ran with a series of other colleagues until 2013. This is a highly academic research-based degree exposing about 40 students per year to the most recent neuroscience research from across the whole of UCL in the form of research seminars, journal clubs and an extensive research project. Now relieved of this major administrative and teaching load, Frances Edwards continues to contribute to the undergraduate, Masters and PhD courses in Neuroscience, particularly concentrating on the the practical lab experience and library research of undergraduate and graduate students.
Interests Beyond UCL:
Frances Edwards has always been actively interested in issues of the natural environment and now works from home much of the time dividing her time between the Essex coast on the River Crouch and the west coast of Ireland where she and her husband grow trees and are proud to be protecting an old forest on their land on the River Roughty in co. Kerry. They also enjoy sailing on the Irish coast. Other interests include making pottery and in recent years wood turning.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr. Damian Cummings
I use single cell and field electrophysiology complemented with fluorescent immunohistochemistry, confocal imaging and behavioural approaches to understand the interactions of neurones and microglia to the development of early Alzheimer's disease pathologies. I am also involved with teaching in both the lab and classroom environments.
Dr. Takshashila Tripathi
I am molecular biologist postdoc working on a Cure-Alzheimer's funded research project studying the genome-wide transcriptomic analysis in the latest APPKI mice model with and without heterozygous human Tau (KI) from 2 to 24 months. We correlate changes in gene expression and development of pathology and also investigate the differences caused by the presence of human Tau investigating development of plaques and the interaction with human Tau, to assess Aβ-induced Tau pathology.
One of my roles is supervising students in the lab.
Dr. Cigdem Gelegen van Eijl
I am a researcher with a particular interest in the use of preclinical models for understanding pathogenic mechanisms that underlie neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases affecting the brain. Before joining the lab in July 2023, I have performed local field potentials and EEG recordings in rodents together with sensory and behavioural experiments to investigate networks underlying learning and their modulation through sleep. I now look to learn in vitro electrophysiological techniques and am also interested in doing signal processing analyses for EEG time series and analyses of large / longitudinal data sets using platforms such as R and MATLAB.
Dr. Sevda Boyanova
I use behavioural assays (open field, novel object recognition test, light-dark box, elevated plus maze) to characterise aged wild type, NLF, NLFxhTau, and hTau mice in the Edwards lab. Previously, I worked on the behavioural characterisation of mouse models at MRC Harwell, and I completed my PhD, looking at the blood-brain barrier in Alzheimer’s disease at King’s College London.
PhD Students
Jack Wood
Throughout my masters and research assistant roles at the Edwards Lab, I focused on using techniques of molecular biology to characterise the microglial response to rising amyloid pathology in APP knock-in mice. Now as a 3rd year PhD student, I use techniques of neurochemistry and molecular biology to assess the interaction of microglia and Alzheimer’s risk genes with varying plaque composition and age. I work in collaboration with Dr Jörg Hanrieder's Neurochemistry group at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Sneha Desai
I’m a first-year PhD student collaborating with Dr Jörg Hanrieder's lab at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. I currently use molecular biology, histological and neurochemical techniques to characterise and study the effect of amyloid-beta induced tau aggregation in various mouse models.
Abdulaziz Aljawder
1st year PhD student. Currently, I am exploring the electrophysiological effects of the Trem2 R47H mutation on pre-weaned mice using the whole-cell voltage clamp technique to study synaptic transmission. The molecular and electrophysiological effects of this mutation, very early during the developing mouse brain, are yet to be discovered. Later, during my coming PhD years, I will be exploring other factors that are known to increase the risk of AD, such as obesity and age, and utilising knock-in mouse models of AD, using other techniques like gene expression analysis, immunohistochemistry and molecular biology
Heba Elsallab
I am a 1st year PhD student working in collaboration with Dr Teresa Niccoli's lab at the Institute of Healthy Ageing at UCL. I will use the Drosophila model of Aβ toxicity followed by mouse models to investigate the function and interaction of synaptic genes. I will use a Gene-switch neuronal driver, neurochemical and molecular biology techniques.
Research Assistants
Brendan Hajar
I am a recent Neuroscience MSci graduate from Manchester University. I now work at the Edwards lab as a research assistant. My role primarily involves organising the mice used in the research and providing support to current lab members.
Aya Balbaa
I am a recent Neuroscience MSc graduate, now working in the Edwards' lab as a research assistant. My research project uses my previous experience in bioinformatics to analyse novel spatial transcriptomics data in knock-in mice models of Alzheimer's disease. Results from this analysis will guide future wet-lab validation experiments.
Masters Students
Anna Pangilinan
I’m an Msc Neuroscience student at UCL and I’m conducting a research project in the lab this year. In a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, I’ll be investigating changes in neuronal gene expression around Aβ plaques and how those expression changes relate to dendritic spine pathology.
Philip Lambert
Philip is a part-time MSc neuroscience student and also lectures at a business school. He has a first degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Bristol University, an MBA from City University Business School (now Bayes Business School) and a PGCE from the UCL Institute of Education specialising in physics with mathematics. Philip’s objective at the Edwards Lab is to gain a good lab-based background in neuroscience before starting project work in 2023.
Georgia Ppasia
I'm an MSci Neuroscience student at UCL. I am currently working on my summer research project, investigating spatial gene expression in microglia in post-mortem human tissue from Alzheimer’s patients using cell-type enriched transcriptomics. For my fourth-year project, I will be exploring the effects of adding genetic and environmental risk factors to mouse models of Alzheimer's disease.
Undergraduate Students
Violet Wang
I’m a 3rd year BSc Biomedical Sciences student at UCL currently working at the Edwards Lab for a summer placement. My current project aims to investigate the mouse model for Alzheimer’s tauopathy regarding the phosphorylation state of tau and its correlation with other cell types and organelles. I will continue this research at the Edwards Lab for my final year research project.
Collaborators
Dr. Jörg Hanrieder - Associate Professor in the Dept. Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, Sahlgrenska Academy at Gothenburg University
Prof. John Hardy - Chair of the Molecular Biology of Neurological Disease, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, UCL
Dr Jeffrey N Savas - Assistant Professor of Neurology (Behavioral Neurology), Medicine (Nephrology and Hypertension) and Pharmacology, Norwestern University
Dr. John G Hardy - Senior Lecturer in Materials Chemistry, Department of Chemistry & Materials Science Institute, Lancaster University
Prof. Tammaryn Lashley - Professor of Neuroscience, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, UCL
Dr. Dervis Salih - Senior Research Associate, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, UCL
Dr Sevinc Bayram - Bioinformatician, Hitatchi Rail Europe Ltd
Professor Lion Shahab - Institute of Epidemiology and Health, UCL
Alumni
Postdocs
Dr Dervis Salih
Dr Sue Robertson
Dr Hemai Parthasarathy
Dr Roberta Donato
Dr Anna De Simoni
Dr Dietlind Koch
Dr Marina Yasvoina
Dr Lily Yu
PhD Students
Dr Katie Stringer
Dr Karina Vitanova
Dr Diana Pamela Benitez
Dr Jonathan Brenton
Dr Wenfei Liu
Dr Tiffany Benway
Dr Zelah Joel
Dr Peter Haslehurst
Dr Joshua Paulin
Dr Caroline Mestrallet
Dr Isabel Dean
Dr Stephanie Parsley
Dr Gareth Price
Research Assistants
Rui Wang
Shenyi Jiang
Ms Rivka Steinberg
Dr Angelo Tedoldi
Lilly Gould
Masters Students - MSc
Darcey Kirwin
Nazar Stasyuk
Megan Watts
Charlotte Carver
Dimitra Sokolova
Aishwarya Pathak
Martha Roberts
Philippa Rosewell
Oriane Tasou
Chloe Hall
Carlijn Peerboom
Pablo Izquierdo Garrudo
Tatsuya Manabe
Bridget Taxy
Evelyn Medewar
Monica Maria Fernandes Freitas
Gaukhar Baidildinova
Patricia Pascual Vargas
Fabia Maroni
Sophie Tunstall-Behrens
Alexandre Gilles
Evans Ohenhen Asowata
Shabinah Sahar Ali
Kenrick Yap
Ejiro Okorodudu
Thomas Moens
Chrysia-Maria Pegasiou
Integrated Masters Students - Msci
Eugenia Wong
Mila Redzic
Peipeng Lin
Dhaval Joshi
Lianne Baffour-Awuah
Natalie Wong
Vicky Smith
Kieran Nair
Barbara Lechnicka
Placement Students
Oriane Onimus
Tom Hagley
Giorgos Sideris
Eda Karakaya
Aygun Badalova
Masters Students - MPhil
Mario Mazzantini
Masters Students - MRes
Ridwaan Joghee