果冻影院

The first听lecture was given by Professor Jennifer Pocock (Professor of Cellular Neuroscience, Department of Neuroinflammation) on听鈥滷rom pollen to microglia; a cellular journey鈥�

Jennifer's lecture covered her career from undergraduate research at Kew into pollen-stigma interactions, her subseqent move to neuroscience, studying听insect CNS at several institutions, before joining 果冻影院 Queen Square Institute of Neurology to study the role of microglia in neuropathology.

Professor Pocock's听laboratory has been听instrumental in detailing how microglia differ from peripheral macrophages in function, and how different input signals to microglia can modify their behaviour, with relevance to neurotransmitter signalling from other brain cells and with regard to input signals relevant to stroke, Alzheimer鈥檚 Disease and Multiple Sclerosis. Her听laboratory was one of the first to set up and establish refined protocols for the generation of iPSC-derived microglia and published one of the first papers identifying the defects linked to Alzheimer鈥檚 Disease and Nasu Hakola Dementia risk variants of the TREM2 gene.

Jennifer is听the only person at 果冻影院 to have been awarded two MRC Capacity Building PhD studentships in Dementias which is testament to her听reputation in the area of Dementia research. She has听acted as a consultant for a number of drug companies to set these up in their laboratories (Eisai, Hoffman LaRoche, Lundbeck). She is听the 果冻影院 lead of 5 year, 8.8million Euro EU Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) entitled PHAGO which brings together 12 research partners at European Universities and International Pharmaceutical companies to target TREM2 and CD33 for the treatment of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease.听

Her work has been in collaboration with Helmut Kettenmann, Simon Heales, John Hardy, Simon Lovestone, Henrik Zetterberg, Sarah Tabrizi. Rina Bandapadayhay, Selina Wray, David Baker, Louise Cuzner and we have published papers investigating the role of the innate immune system in neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson鈥檚 disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Huntington鈥檚 disease and particularly Alzheimer鈥檚 disease.

The second听lecture was given by Professors Ahmed Toosy (Professor of Neurology, Department of Neuroinflammation) entitled听鈥淢echanistic insights into demyelinating disorders鈥�

Ahmed's lecture began with on overview of his early influences, from school to听his time听as a junior doctor, including at the National Hospital, followed by his research fellowship at the 果冻影院 Queen Square Institute of Neurology, and work with the NMR Unit, before focusing on his research听on optic neuritis.

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Ahmed Toosy is a clinician scientist in the department of Neuroinflammation at Queen Square. He was appointed honorary consultant neurologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital and Queen Square in 2009 with clinical interests in neuro-ophthalmology and demyelinating disorders. His research utilizes advanced imaging tools to help understand mechanisms of damage and recovery in neurological disease with a focus on demyelinating disorders and optic neuritis. He studied medicine at Cambridge and St Georges Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1994. After he obtained his MRCP in 1998 he undertook his doctoral research under Professor Alan Thompson at the Institute of Neurology, completing his PhD in 2005. He was awarded a prestigious HEFCE senior lectureship in 2009 at the same time as his appointment as consultant neurologist at Queen Square and Moorfields.

He has obtained 拢4 million of research funding including a recent major research project award by the MRC to extend his longitudinal investigations into demyelinating clinically isolated syndromes. He has published in high impact journals such as Brain, Annals of Neurology, Lancet Neurology and JAMA Neurology. He was awarded his Chair in Neurology last year and will deliver his inaugural lecture on work related to understanding demyelinating disorders.

Professor Michael Hanna听introduced the speakers and votes of thanks were听given by Professor Alan Thompson, Dean of Faculty of Brain Sciences, 果冻影院 and听Professor Louise Cuzner, Emeritus Professor of Neurochemistry, 果冻影院

Links

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• Previous inaugural lectures