Sun Nee Tan, Graduate Student Representative
The Graduate Program in Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary program administered under the Faculty of Medicine and the Brain Research Centre at the University of British Columbia. It offers a coordinated program of graduate studies leading to M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Neuroscience.
Student Profiles
Brett Hilton is in the 4th year of his Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Wolfram Tetzlaff, Director of the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD) at the Blusson Spinal Cord Centre (Vancouver General Hospital). Brett’s primary research interest is in the biology of spinal cord injury (SCI). He focuses on the regeneration and reorganization of neural circuits that the brain uses to control movement. In one project, he is using gene therapy to coax damaged nerve cells to regrow their processes (axons) after SCI. In a second, he maps how the brain responds to SCI using optogenetic laser techniques. Ultimately, it is Brett’s hope that his research will help develop effective therapies for paralysis.
Brett completed a B.Sc. in Cell Biology & Genetics and a B.A. in English Literature in 2010. He is a recipient of a Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship and is supported by the CIHR Transplant Training Program. Outside of research, Brett enjoys long distance running, reading, and writing.
Cristina Rubino is currently in the second year of her Master’s program under the supervision of Dr. Jason Barton. Prior to moving to British Columbia, she completed her undergraduate degree at York University in her hometown, Toronto, Ontario. For her undergraduate thesis, she investigated the effectiveness of a computerized tool, a cognitive assessment used in diagnosing mild cognitive impairment, an early stage of Alzheimer’s. Coming into the Barton Lab, her interests developed from studying neurodegenerative diseases to vision-related disorders such as ‘hemianopia’ (a neurological deficit that results in blindness on one side of each eye). For example, imagine how debilitating it would be to lose your ability to see on the right of each eye; people with hemianopia report that reading is one of the most struggling aspects of their deficit. Subsequently, she sets out to investigate whether an online training program can aid in their rehabilitation to recognize words more accurately and ultimately read more efficiently; a skill we need in almost anything we do. Using an eye tracking methodology, she is currently exploring whether we can manipulate the brain in a way to increase the amount of information we obtain when making eye movements during reading. Other than her research interests, she has become an Ultimate Frisbee fanatic out here in Vancouver. She is currently playing on one of three competitive teams and will be representing Vancouver in the Canadian Ultimate Championships this summer.
Dr. Greg Silasi has been a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Timothy Murphy’s lab in the department of psychiatry since 2011. His main research interest is to understand how brain plasticity contributes to stroke recovery. Currently he uses optogenetic tools to probe the motor system in mice following cortical stroke. Although animal models have provided much insight into the degenerative processes that occur after stroke, the translation of therapeutic interventions from animals to humans has been less successful. Recently, non-invasive brain stimulation techniques such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) or Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (TDCS) have offered hope for enhancing recovery in stroke patients by altering brain plasticity. Implementing these treatments in patients will require extensive pre-clinical testing to optimize stimulation parameters and to identify the most effective form of stimulation. Greg’s research aims to create an animal model for non-invasive brain stimulation using optogenetics in mice and to evaluate the therapeutic potential of various forms of stimulation. The long term goal of this research is to translate effective brain stimulation paradigms to patients that may benefit from such interventions.
Beibei Song completed her BSc degree in behavioral neuroscience and biochemistry (nutrition) in Memorial University of Newfoundland. Now, she is a first-year PhD student in neuroscience, supervised by Dr. Weihong Song. Her group mainly focuses on the pathogenesis—specifically investigating the molecular and cellular mechanisms– of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) which is the most common neurodegenerative disorder leading to dementia. The central pathological feature of AD is the deposition of Aβ in the brain derived from APP, a type 1 transmembrane protein. Mutations of the enzymes regulating APP processing may contribute to the pathogenesis of familial AD.
Beibei’s research focuses on: 1) Role of ubiquitin-specific proteases 25 (USP25) gene in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases and Down Syndrome. Preliminary data has shown that USP25 interacts with proteins associated with APP processing. Alteration in the expression of USP25 can cause memory deficit in mice. Beibei will examine the underlying molecular mechanism; 2) To develop system to evaluate mutations associated with Alzheimer’s disease in vitro. In familial AD, PS1 is associated with AD. It has many different types of mutations, while not all of them will have major impacts on APP processing. Instead of generating transgenic model in vivo for each mutation, Beibei aims to develop a simpler model to predict the functional effect of those mutations, using cell lines in vitro.
Sun Nee Tan is a second year PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Martin McKeown, Clinical Director of the Pacific Parkinson’s Research Centre (PPRC) at UBC. Sun Nee is investigating mechanisms through which a novel home-based, rehabilitative intervention which employs music, exercise and sensori-motor contingency brings about improvements in gait, balance, cognition and quality of life of people living with Parkinson’s disease. In this longitudinal study, Parkinson’s patients are encouraged to have regular walking exercise while listening to music played through an ipodTM. Using a specially-designed application, the music cuts off when the ipod’s sensors detect that the patient’s stride length falls below a pre-determined threshold. This constantly encourages patients to walk with bigger step size to prevent shuffling of gait, a common impairment in people living with this disease. Utilizing MRI technology, Sun Nee aims to demonstrate that long term aerobic walking exercise coupled with effective contingency training will result in quantifiable functional and structural brain connectivity alterations, possibly augmenting compensatory mechanisms to slow down the progression of this disease. Her work has also been highlighted in the Globe and Mail for her participation in the “3 minute thesis” competition.
Sun Nee completed her undergraduate studies in King’s College, London and was elected as an Associate of King’s College (AKC) in 2007. In 2013, she completed her M.Sc. (Neuroscience) from UBC under the supervision of Dr. Brian Cairns. Other than research and teaching, her passion and interests include dancing, cooking, travelling and trying out all kinds of outdoor activities.
Xuelai Fan and Wu Yang Jin
In a collaborative effort, Xuelai Fan and Wu Yang Jin, both graduate students of Dr. Yu Tian Wang’s lab in the Brain Research Centre, harnessed a natural cellular process to degrade a death-causing protein in stroke and protected the rat brain from stroke-induced injury.
Despite the massive personal and socioeconomic toll of the ischemic stroke, currently there are few drugs that can protect the brain from stroke damage after an attack had already occurred. Recent research efforts uncovered a protein, death-associated protein kinase 1 (DAPK1), that plays a crucial role in triggering cell death; in fact, mice lacking this protein are resistant to brain damage from experimental stroke. Following an ischemic insult, the normally inactive DAPK1 becomes activated and thus poised to signal cell death. In an effort to reduce ischemic brain injury, Fan and Jin designed a small peptide that can only bind to the activated DAPK1 and direct it to the lysosome for degradation while leaving the inactive DAPK1 intact. They then tagged Tat, a safe and effective delivery system, to the peptide to allow it to penetrate into the brain and through the membranes of neurons.
The team injected the peptide into the blood of rats that had gone through experimental stroke, and found that the peptide specifically knocked down DAPK1 in stroke-affected brain areas. The decrease in DAPK1 levels was associated with an impressive decrease in neuronal damage, including a smaller infarct area and fewer dying neurons. Encouraged by these results, the team is now targeting other disease-causing proteins for degradation with custom-designed peptides, including a protein linked to Parkinson’s Disease.
Fan graduated top of her class from Peking University with a BSc in Pharmacy. In addition to research, she is a freelance science writer and editor with publications in the Scientific American MIND and Discover blogs. Jin, also a graduate of Peking University with a BSc in Biology, holds a Four Year Fellowship at UBC. He is currently exploring ways to advance peptide technologies for use in basic brain research and clinical use.
Eli York
How does the aging neuroimmune system lead to Alzheimer’s disease? A second year PhD student in the Roskams’ lab in the Life Science’s Institute (LSI), Eli York aims to identify epigenetic differences between young and aged microglia, the brain’s resident immune cells. Cellular aging and stress can lead to aberrant phenotypes and functions. Microglia are constantly surveying and cleaning their local environment, and are the first cells to respond to injury. Their lifestyle likely comes with the occupational hazard of damage and toxin accumulation, which progresses cellular aging. Once aged, they are no longer helpful, but rather chronically release pro-inflammatory cytokines, lose their protective abilities, and decrease neural support, which may potentiate neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease. The Roskams’ lab is looking at age-associated Histone Deacetylase expression (a family of epigenetic modifying enzymes), to determine if microglial aging might be epigenetically regulated, and therefore, potentially reversed. It is hoped that rejuvenating the neuroimmune system will offer increased protection and support for neurons, and slow onset and progression of senile dementias.