Neuroscience
Team EPD
Early Intervention in Psychiatric Diseases
Neurodevelopmental disorders occur due to impairments of the brain development or a damage and affect learning ability, self-control, emotion and memory. A normal brain development involves proliferation and migration of the cells which occur mostly during prenatal life and arborization (circuit formation) and myelination taking place through the first two post-natal decades, which spans childhood and adolescence. Therefore, childhood and adolescence represent a critical developmental phase in the emergence of psychiatric diseases. Therapeutic pharmacological intervention during this period of change in brain structure and function could normalize brain maturation and improve the disease trajectory.
Schizophrenia as being a neurodevelopmental disorder, shows aberrations not only in structure, wiring and chemistry of multiple neuronal systems but also in myelination. And these changes happen long before clinical symptoms of the disease appear in early adult life. Accumulating evidence implicates that brains of schizophrenia patients and people having clinical high risk for developing schizophrenia show decreased white matter volume, suggesting a deficit in myelination.
Our group is interested in deciphering the causes of this so far untapped pathology occurring due to myelination deficits. Our aim is to develop in vitro and in vivo platforms to study oligodendrocyte development and myelination and utilize these platforms to identify extrinsic (neuronal) and intrinsic (oligodendrocytic) factors affecting myelination in schizophrenia.
- Mentors
- Prof. Dr. Bastian Hengerer
Director CNS Diseases Research at Boehringer Ingelheim (Industry mentor) - Prof. Dr. Leda Dimou
Head of the Master’s programme Molecular and Translational Neuroscience, University of Ulm, Germany (Academic mentor)
- Prof. Dr. Bastian Hengerer
Our Team Members
Dr. Ebru Ercan-Herbst
Group Leader
- Short Bio
- 2015-2019: Postdoctoral researcher, Tau-Mediated Neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s Disease, BioMed X, Germany
- 2011–2015: Postdoctoral researcher in neuroscience with Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD, Dept. of Neurobiology, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. Neuron-oligodendrocyte interactions and myelination in autism spectrum disorders
- 2006–2011: PhD in cell biology and biochemistry with Dr. Matthias Seedorf, University of Heidelberg, Center for Molecular Biology, Heidelberg, Germany. Unconventional trafficking of proteins
- 2004–2006: Master of Science in Molecular Bioengineering, Technical University of Dresden. Thesis work at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany
- Contact
Dr. Silvia De Cicco
Postdoctoral Researcher
- Short Bio
- 2015-2019: PhD with Dr. Michela Deleidi in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience at Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience/International Max Planck Research School, Tübingen, Germany
- 2014-2015: Postgraduate Fellow with Dr. Angela Gritti at Gene/neural stem cell therapy for neurodegenerative diseases unit, TIGET, San Raffaele Institute
- 2011-2014: Master of Science Degree with Dr. Angela Gritti in Molecular and Cellular Medical Biotechnology at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University Milan, Italy
Division of Gene/neural stem cell therapy for neurodegenerative diseases, TIGET, San Raffaele Institute
- Contact
Dr. Roberta Marisca
Postdoctoral Researcher
- Short Bio
- 2017-2021: PhD in neuroscience with Dr. Tim Czopka at the Technical University of Munich studying mechanisms of axon-oligodendrocyte precursor cell interaction in vivo. Enrolled in the Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences at the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany.
- 2014-2016: Double-degree Master of Science in molecular biology and genetics at the University of Padua and the Paris Diderot University, Italy and France. Thesis work on the circadian clock in drosophila at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris, France.
- 2010-2014: Bachelor of Science in Biology at the University of Messina, Italy.
- Contact
Gökçe Nihan Yildirim
Research Assistant
- Short Bio
- 2019-2020: Master´s Thesis at DKFZ, Division of Molecular Neurogenetics, Heidelberg, Germany
- 2017-2020: Master of Science in Molecular Biosciences, Major Neuroscience, Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg, Germany
- 2016: Student researcher, Roskilde University, Denmark
- 2013-2017: Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology and Genetics, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
- Contact
Martina von der Bey
PhD Student
Team EPD Alumni
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