- Department / Institute
- Biochemistry Department / German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE)
- Subject area
- Neurodegenerative Disease Research
- Name of supervisor
- Prof. Dr. Dieter Edbauer / Dr. Qihui Zhou
- Number of open positions
- 1
- Project title
- Neuroimmune interaction in ALS/FTD
- Language requirements
- Fluency in English
- Academic requirements
- 4-year Bachelor's plus relevant Master's degree; excellent technical skills, an enthusiasm for using and developing new techniques, and the interpersonal skills to work within a diverse team of scientists; primary cell culture and/or animal work experience; bioinformatic skills to analyze next-generation sequencing data is an advantage
- Study model
- Full doctoral study model: 36 or 48 months
- Contacts
- Prof. Dr. Dieter Edbauer: dieter.edbauer@dzne.de
Dr. Qihui Zhou: qihui.zhou@dzne.de
Project description
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are progressive fatal neurodegenerative diseases with overlapping clinical symptoms and neuropathological findings. Protein aggregation and neuroinflammation are the two main hall marks for ALS/FTD. We focus on C9orf72 mutation and other genetic forms of ALS/FTD to understand disease pathomechanism (Mori et al, Science 2013, May Acta Neuropath et al, 2014, Zhou et al, EMBO Mol Med 2017, Khosravi, EMBO Journal 2020) and develop mouse models for mechanistic and therapeutic studies (Schludi et al, Acta Neuropath 2017; Zhou& Mareljic et al, EMBO Mol Med 2020; LaClair& Zhou et al, Acta Neuropath 2020). The recent work in my lab revealed a disturbed neuroimmune interaction within CNS resident cells as well as peripheral immune cells. This project aims to understand the pathomechanism of altered neuro-immune interaction led by protein aggregation in ALS/FTD. We will use single cell sequencing, AAV system, primary cell culture in human bio samples and mice models.