selective neurodegeneration

Dr. Jean-Pierre Roussarie, May 2022 - Present

I am a current PhD student in the Roussarie Lab at Boston University School of Medicine. I am continuing my rotation project in developing an in vitro system to model ECII neurons - broadly speaking, we are working to differentiate both iPSCs and fibroblasts to generic cortical neurons and ECII neurons. Other areas we are exploring include differentially expressed genes in ECII, protein interactions driving sensitivity to tau pathology, and inherent characteristics of ECII neurons that determine the vulnerability of ECII neurons in Alzheimer’s disease.

Rotation, Summer 2022: My rotation project focused on the development of an in vitro culture system to model ECII (entorhinal cortex layer II) neurons. Additionally, we began preliminary investigations into recapitulating patient-derived mutations and clinical phenotypes in iPSC-derived neurons, to examine potential changes over the course of neurodegeneration.

Awards

• 2022 AMA Research Challenge Poster Symposium Invitee

Presentations

• Poster. Feng I & Roussarie JP. “iPSC-derived neurons recapitulate cell type-specific pathology of tau variants”. Annual MD-PhD Retreat, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA. Sep 2022.