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.
Research Fellows
Shamim Choudhury
I am a research fellow, who joined the NPP Research Department in 2024, specialising in in-vitro brain slice electrophysiology, focusing on whole-cell patch clamp and field recording in aged mice. Research explores amyloid-beta-induced tau aggregation in various mouse models. Previously, I worked in pharmaceutical and academic institutions, contributing to ion channel drug discovery projects.
PhD Students
Abdulaziz Aljawder
I am a final-year PhD student in the Edwards Lab at UCL with a medical (M.D.) background. My PhD investigates how Alzheimer’s disease risk and metabolic factors shape hippocampal synaptic function, focusing on the App NL-F knock-in model together with the microglial risk variant Trem2 R47H. I am particularly interested in hippocampal synaptic transmission, plasticity, and synaptic density in aged mice, and how these phenotypes may differ with high-fat diet exposure and/or TREM2 R47H. My work combines electrophysiology in acute hippocampal slices, including whole-cell patch clamp recordings and extracellular field recordings, alongside immunohistochemistry to perform quantitative analyses of hippocampal synaptic density, to link circuit-level changes to disease-relevant genetic and environmental drivers. I am currently writing up my thesis.
Sneha Desai
I’m a third-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.
Heba Elsallab
I am a 3rd year PhD student working in collaboration with Dr Teresa Niccoli's lab at the Institute of Healthy Ageing at UCL. I use the Drosophila model of Aβ toxicity alongside APP knock-in mouse models to investigate the function and interaction of synaptic and mitochondrial genes. I use a Gene-switch neuronal driver, neurochemical and molecular biology techniques.
Masters Students
Mohamed Elameri
I am an MSci Pharmacology student at UCL interested in drug discovery, design and development. I am investigating presynaptic and axonal changes in NLF Alzheimer's mice and NLF mice carrying the human microglia risk variant TREM2 R47H using immunohistochemistry.
Yiting Guo
I am an MSci Natural Sciences student at UCL. My research project investigates the effects of introducing genetic modifications in tau and Trem2 to mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. I will use electrophysiology to study how these genetic changes impact synaptic plasticity, specifically long-term potentiation.
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 Busra Aynekin
Dr Takshashila Tripathi
Dr Sevda Boyanova
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
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PhD Students​
Dr Jack Wood
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
Masters Students - MSc
​Lydia Fenson
Phillip Lambert
Anna Pangilinan
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
Masters Students - MPhil
Mario Mazzantini
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Masters Students - MRes
Ridwaan Joghee
Integrated Masters Students - Msci
Jiongqiao La
Barbara Lechnicka
Georgia Ppasia
Eugenia Wong
Mila Redzic
Peipeng Lin
Dhaval Joshi
Lianne Baffour-Awuah
Natalie Wong
Vicky Smith
Kieran Nair
Research Assistants​
Emily Dudeney
Brendan Hajar
Aya Balbaa
Lilly Gould
Rui Wang
Shenyi Jiang
Ms Rivka Steinberg
Dr Angelo Tedoldi
Lilly Gould​
Placement Students
Oriane Onimus
Tom Hagley
Giorgos Sideris
Eda Karakaya
Aygun Badalova