Graduate Students:
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Graduate Students: |
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Lani Clinton:
B.A., Williams College, Williamstown, MA 2002
lanikai@uci.edu
I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii with my mom
(Kathy), dad (Larry), brother (Nathan, 10), and sister
(Tahnee, 14). After a frigid four years in Williamstown,
MA for college, I have returned to sunny southern California
to pursue my studies in graduate school. No more snowy
winters, thank you. I have always loved science and
when I discovered neuroscience in college, I was instantly
hooked. The LaFerla lab is an extremely diverse and
intellectually stimulating environment to work in. It
is truly on honor to be a graduate student in this lab
where we get to use state-of-the-art equipment and are
on the cutting edge of Alzheimer’s research. My
thesis project is to generate a transgenic model with
the two hallmark lesions of Alzheimer’s disease,
plaques and tangles, in addition to Lewy bodies (the
hallmark pathological feature of Parkinson’s disease).
A high percentage of Alzheimer’s patients have
Lewy bodies in addition to plaques and tangles. Therefore,
examining the interaction between all three protein
aggregates in vivo is very intriguing and clinically
relevant.
In my free time I like to play with my horse, Bender.
Debbi Ann Henderson:
B.S., Framingham State College, Framingham, MA 2000
Background:
I have always loved science, and when my grandmother
was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1985,
and as I watched her slowly disappear amidst an onslaught
of plaques and tangles, I decided to direct my love
of science toward AD research. After obtaining my B.S.
in Biology from Framingham State in 2000, I went on
to study the AD vaccine in a double transgenic (APP/PS1)
mouse model of AD in Dave Morgan’s lab at the
University of South Florida (in Tampa, Florida) as a
graduate student. In 2001, I took a hiatus from graduate
school to start a family here in southern California.
While my daughter was still an infant, I balanced being
a stay-at-home mom with working part-time as a technician
in Leon Thal’s lab at the University of California,
San Diego. There I studied the effects of nerve growth
factor on proliferation and migration of satellite cells
(a type of glial cell) in the dorsal root ganglia of
rats. In 2003, I resumed my career as a graduate student
here at UCI. I am very excited to be continuing my quest
to understand the disease that destroyed my grandmother
(sadly, she spent the last 5 years of her life in a
vegetative state –unable to speak, barely able
to move- before finally passing away in the fall of
2003). I feel very lucky to again be working with the
current top AD animal model (Salvo’s triple transgenic
mouse).
Research:
No animal model to date has been able capture all 3
human pathological hallmarks of AD -plaques, tangle,
and ultimately, neuronal cell death. The neuronal cell
death aspect of AD has so far been the most elusive
in mouse models, even though the cell death seen in
human AD may indeed be the immediate cause underlying
behavioral problems. My main focus in the lab is in
determining the extent of cell death (if any) in the
triple transgenic model and using cross-breeding strategies
to increase neuronal cell death based on strain differences
in susceptibility to excitotoxic cell death. In my free
time (full-time grad student + mom = free time?) I enjoy
sleeping and drinking coffee.
Micheal Sy:
Bert Tseng:
 A.B.,
Harvard University 1997
btseng@uci.edu
M.D./Ph.D. Student
I was born in the mid-70s in the state of Georgia but
I can't say that I recollect the place as we only lived
there for a year. I spent my early childhood in a suburb
of Boston, after a few years in a suburb of Chicago,
before moving to fair Fresno, CA. There I remained until
I graduated from high school and took flight to Harvard.
My father once quipped that if he had known that I wanted
to go to Harvard, we wouldn't have moved from Massachusetts.
Apparently he thought that I would follow my older sister
to Berkeley. I somehow managed to journey along a similar
career path as she's training to become an ophthalmologist
whereas I plan on becoming a physician-scientist. My
first summer in college was filled with research on
clathrin subunits. The next summer and the remainder
of my college days drifted away in the lab of Dr. John
Maggio where I became rather familiar with the beta-amyloid
peptide. After graduating from college with a degree
in physics, I took the next logical step and continued
conducting research on Alzheimer's disease in the distinguished
lab of Dr. Dennis Selkoe at the Brigham Woman's Hospital
in Boston. During those two years, I applied to and
was accepted by the UCI MSTP. Thus I returned to California.
At UCI, I joined the LaFerla lab where I have managed
to use RNA interference to knockdown APP expression
in cell culture. In my free time, I try to lead an active
life by playing tennis, volleyball, softball, basketball,
or whatever activity my friends and I feel like engaging
in. When I'm not being active, I enjoy having my ACL
recontructed time and time again. Besides perusing journal
articles, I find intellectual stimulation in a good
physics, math or medical text and an occasional science
fiction novel. Lastly, I manage to regress back to my
adolescence from time to time by escaping into fanciful
worlds created by my Gamecube.
Tritia Yamasaki:
 no
notes yet!
Former Graduate Students:
Malcolm A. Leissring, Ph.D.
mleissring@rics.bwh.harvard.edu
Ph.D., 2000 Department of Neurobiology and Behavior,
UCI
Dissertation Project: Modulation of calcium signaling
by presenilin mutations .
Awards: Edward Steinhaus Memorial Award for Excellence
in Graduate Teaching (2000); Redfield Memorial Graduate
Scholarship in the Molecular Biosciences (1999); Glenn
Foundation/AFAR scholarship (1998)
Current Position : Postdoctoral Researcher, Center
for Neurologic Disorders, Harvard University (Dr. Dennis
Selkoe, advisor)
Michael C. Sugarman
 msugarma@uci.edu
B.S., Union College, 1997
Dissertation Project: Transgenic mouse model
of inclusion body myositis
Awards: Glenn Foundation/AFAR Scholarship
(2000); Union College, Magna Cum Laude (1997).
Yama Akbari:
 B.S.,
UCLA 1996
yakbari@uci.edu
Dissertation Project: Modulation of
beta-
amyloid production by calcium signaling
pathways
Awards: Glenn Foundation/AFAR Scholarship
(2000); Phi Beta Kappa; Summa Cum Laude UCLA
M.D./Ph.D. Student
I was raised in Denver until early high school, when
I moved to a Philadelphia suburb, then moved to Anaheim
(Disneyland), California. I graduated high school in
Anaheim and matriculated at UCLA in 1992 with the intention
of becoming a physician. After conducting research first
in opthalmology (Jules Stein Eye Insitute) and later
in neuroscience, I realized that neuroscience stimulates
me the most. Thus I conducted an honors thesis in psychobiology
with Dr. Michael Fanselow on the neural basis for Pavlovian
conditioning in the amygdala. During my thesis research,
I realized that I truly enjoy research, and wanted to
incorporate it into my future medical career. Consequently,
I decided to pursue a combined MD/PhD program, and chose
UCI because of the superb neuroscience reputation. Upon
completing the first two years of medical school, I
began conducting research in Dr. Frank LaFerla's lab
and enjoyed it considerably. Frank's lab had a friendly
and bright atmosphere conducive to successful scientific
research.
My research revolves around the role of intracellular
calcium dyshomeostasis in Alzheimer's disease. Since
I've joined the lab, we've shown that calcium signaling
is modified by both presenilin and amyloid precursor
protein (APP). We were the first group to demonstrate
that mutations in presenilin cause deficits in capacitive
calcium entry and levels of endoplasmic reticulum stores.
More recently, we showed that APP's intracellular fragment,
which migrates to the nucleus and may effect transcription,
also regulates calcium signaling. The latest fascinating
data we've obtained involves the modulation of beta-amyloid
production by calcium signaling, that is, that calcium
signaling may lie upstream of beta-amyloid production,
and that one can change levels of beta-amyloid by changing
various intracellular pathways involved in calcium signaling.
Upon compeletion of my PhD, I will finish the remaining
two years of medical school and perhaps pursue an academic
career in neurology.
In my spare time, I like playing music (keyboard instruments,
and Indian Tabla drums), playing intramural sports (football
and basketball), working out, and going out.
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