Nicole Corbin-Stein, PhD
Nicole Corbin-Stein is a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale University under the mentorship of Le Zhang, PhD. In the Zhang lab, Nicole focuses on understanding how immune cells, called T cells, drive disease pathology in prodromal Parkinson’s disease. Before joining Yale, Nicole completed her PhD in the Graduate Biomedical Sciences program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Her thesis work demonstrated that CD4 and CD8 T cells facilitate and progress neuroinflammation, demyelination, and neurodegeneration in a mouse model of Multiple System Atrophy (MSA). During her PhD, she was sponsored by various T32 grants and the NINDS DSPAN F99. Nicole’s long-term goal is to establish an inclusive lab environment that investigates how T cell senescence drives pathology in various neurodegenerative disorders.
Rafiad Islam, PhD
He is a Associate research scientist. He received his PhD on neuroscience and got his postdoctoral training on developmental neuroscience.
Janna Jernigan, PhD
Janna is a recent PhD graduate from the university of Florida with extensive experience in understanding the role of chronic systemic inflammation on the immune system in and around the brain. Janna has been proud to run two regional SfN chapter conferences for the North Central Florida Chapter of SfN and interact with students as a summer course instructor.
Gabriele Strusi, PhD
I am a Research Associate at Spillantini's Lab where I plan to investigate the spreading of alpha-synuclein from the gut to the brain, elucidating the role of LRRK2. I recently completed a PhD in Biomedical Science at the University of East Anglia where I investigated the relevance of isothiocyanate to improve the efficacy of kinase inhibitors in hepatocellular carcinoma. Before that I studied new ways to improve the biocompatibility of synthetic polymers for the growth of human primary fibroblast for regenerative medicine applications at the Tissue Engineering lab of the University of Sheffield. My background lies on a bachelor's degree in Biotechnology that I undertook at the University of Sassari. I completed the BSc degree after an internship at the University of Southampton with a thesis on the use of a software to identify novel copy number variants in exome data from patients affected by inflammatory bowel disease.
Yirong Xu
I am a researcher specializing in immunology and molecular biology, with a primary focus on the interactions between the microbiota and the immune system, as well as the relationship between the genome and Parkinson’s disease. I have extensive experience using advanced techniques such as flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, and gnotobiotic murine models to study the the relationship between the genome and neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.
