• Workplace: Biozentrum, University of Basel

• Link(s): About the Research Group

• Contact: Twitter

• Short biography: Fiona Doetsch obtained her B.Sc. at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and her Ph.D. at Rockefeller University in New York City, USA. She was a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University and a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies and joined Columbia University as faculty in 2003. In 2014, she moved to the Biozentrum, University of Basel in Switzerland where she is Professor of Molecular Stem Cell Biology. She is a member of EMBO, and has received several awards including the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, the Irma T. Hirschl Scholar Award, the Harold and Golden Lamport Award for Excellence in Basic Science Research and an ERC Advanced Grant.

• Current activities/ scientific goals: Stem cells in the adult mammalian brain give rise to new neurons and glia throughout life. They reside in specialized microenvironments, or niches, and dynamically integrate and respond to different inputs. We are investigating the diversity of adult neural stem cells and their lineages, how intrinsic and extrinsic signals regulate stem cell quiescence and activation, and the role of long-range signals and physiological states, including signals from the cerebrospinal fluid, the vasculature and neural circuits, in regulating functionally different pools of stem cells.

• Workplace: Biozentrum, University of Basel

• Links: About the Research Group

• Contact: Twitter

• Biography: Peter Scheiffele obtained his Bachelor degree in Biochemistry at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany and graduated with his doctorate at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg with studies carried out at the EMBL Heidelberg in 1998. After a Post doc at the University of California, Berkley he was appointed assistant professor in the Department of Physiology & Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University, New York in 2001. Since 2008 he is professor for Cell and Developmental Neurobiology at the Biozentrum, University of Basel. He is a member of EMBO and received several awards, including the Searle Scholar, Simons Young Investigator, John Merck Fund Award, Robert Bing Prize, and an ERC Advanced Grant.

• Current activities/ scientific goals: The Scheiffele group uses an in vivo cell biology approach to uncover mechanisms of neuronal network formation in health and disease. They are seeking to understand molecular mechanisms of synapses formation, developmental remodeling, and plasticity. They apply a broad range of molecular, anatomical, imaging, electrophysiological, and behavioral assessments in rodents. A particular focus is on mRNA alternative splicing and translation, and its dysregulation in autism spectrum disorders. Based on the insights in developmental studies, the Scheiffele lab is developing therapeutic strategies using small molecules and splicing therapeutics for genetically-defined neurodevelopmental conditions.

• Workplace: Roche pRED, DTA NRD - Neurogenomics

• Contact: LinkedIn

• Biography: Dheeraj started his scientific career as a Postdoctoral Research fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York (USA) workig on Genetics of Autism spectrum disorders, Schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder (2006-2010). He proceeded his academic career as a Senior Research Project Scientist at the University of California San Diego in the Department of Psychiatry, USA (2010-2014). Since 2014, Dheeraj has been working as a Principal Scientist and ad interim Head of the Neurogenomics Section in Neuroscience and Rare Diseases discovery and therapeutic area (NRD DTA). The Neurogenomics Section consists of three cross-disciplinary labs working on genetics, epigenetics and functional genomics. As Research Project Leader, he leads a cross functional drug development team for a rare disease indication. In total, Dheeraj has accumulated fourteen years of experience in human genetics of common and rare neurological, neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders.

• Current activities/ scientific goals: The mission of Dheeraj's group is to apply data-rich genomics technologies to reveal the biological basis of mental health and illness. The team believes that progress in this field can be accelerated by integrating biology with computer science, math and statistics. The team focuses on the biology of the brain in late-onset adult neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders, and neurodevelopmental disorders. Almost everything remains to be discovered about the mechanisms of these brain illnesses. The team strives to answer basic questions about disease mechanisms in these disorders to drive new drug-development directions, also with the help of human tissues (blood, post-mortem and CSF).

Their discovery research activities involve applying integrative functional genomics approaches including single nuclei RNAseq, ATACseq, whole genome genotyping and CRISPR screens in human neuronal models for new target identification and validation in autism spectrum disorders, multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s disease, Fronto-temporal dementia (FTD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson’s disease (PD).

• Workplace: Roche pRED, DTA NRD - Research Department

• Contact: LinkedIn

• Biography: Madhurima (Madhu) brings more than 15 years of experience in Neuroscience research. Her work in Roche over the past 9+ years centered on leading preclinical research aimed at elucidating disease biology and mechanistic understanding in Neuroscience and rare diseases using in vitro and in vivo approaches, and most recently also as the Network Head for Movement Disorders ad interim.

• Current activities/ scientific goals: Her work has spanned indications across neuroscience and rare diseases, starting with work in systems neuroscience with novel circuit chemogenetic and optogenetic behavioral and fMRI assays to address in vivo circuit engagement of drug candidates. Her team has applied this circuit based assay to many projects in the autism and schizophrenia space. Her subsequent work in Huntington’s Disease sparked her interest in Neurotechnologies like RNA targeting (with ASOs and small molecules) and gene editing. As part of a ROADS collaboration with the Doudna lab, her team developed an in vivo platform for optimizing CRISPR/cas9 based gene editing. Using this platform, they developed a new ribonucleoprotein (RNP) formulation to deliver cas9 for in vivo editing in the brain neurons in vivo. Her current work is focused on evaluating and developing neuroscience and rare disease applications to new platform technologies such as RNA targeting, editing and non viral delivery.