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.
Publications
- Martina von der Bey, Silvia De Cicco, Susanne Zach, Bastian Hengerer, Ebru Ercan-Herbst (2023): Three-dimensional co-culture platform of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived oligodendrocyte lineage cells and neurons for studying myelination
STAR Protocols, 4 (2)
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)
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
Martina von der Bey
PhD Student
Janina Breining
Research Assistant
Short Bio
- 2021 – 2022: Master’s thesis at the Zoological Institute, Dept. of Cell and Neurobiology at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany, in the field of schizophrenia research
- 2018 – 2022: Master of Science in Biology at KIT with a focus on molecular biology, cell biology, and developmental biology
- 2019: Student intern at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS), Tamanoi lab, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
- 2015 – 2018: Bachelor of Science in Biology at KIT
Daria Andreeva
Research Assistant
Short Bio
- 2022 – 2023: Junior Researcher at the Laboratory of Contagious Pathogens, World-Class Research Centre for Personalized Medicine, St. Petersburg, Russia
- 2021 – 2023: Junior Researcher at the Laboratory of neurogenesis and neurodegenerative diseases, World-Class Research Centre for Personalized Medicine, St. Petersburg, Russia
- 2019 – 2021: Master’s degree at Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia. The final thesis was conducted at the Laboratory of cell motility at the Institute of Cytology of the Russian Science Academy
- 2014 – 2018: Bachelor’s degree at Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia
Deniz Tasgin
Research Assistant
Short Bio
- 2022: Graduate student researcher, investigating the role of oxygen gradient in the human gut, Heidelberg Universitätsklinikum, CIID, Germany
- 2021: Master’s Thesis at DKFZ, In vitro model generation using CRISPR, Heidelberg, Germany
- 2019 – 2021: Master of Science in Molecular Biosciences (Major: Molecular and Cellular Biology), Heidelberg University, Germany
- 2013 – 2019: Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology and Genetics, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey
Ecem Aslan
Intern
Short Bio
- 2023 – current: Erasmus Exchange student in the Biotechnology Department at Hochschule Esslingen, Germany
- 2023: Internship at KyooBe Tech, Germany
- 2022: Internships at the Natural Product Chemistry Laboratory and Biomimetics Laboratory at Izmir Institute of Technology, Turkey
- 2019 – current: Bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering at Izmir Institute of Technology, Turkey
Team EPD Alumni
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