PEOPLE
DANIELLA RYLANDER OTTOSSON, PhD
Principal Investigator
Daniella has a Master's in Biomedicine from Lund University with exchange studies at the University of Toronto where she specialized in neuroscience. She did her Ph.D. education at Lund University with Prof. A Cenci Nilsson, focusing on behavioral pharmacology and motor complications of Parkinson’s disease. Daniella defended her Ph.D. thesis in 2010 and was awarded Prize for best Ph.D. thesis from Parkinson Foundation, Sweden.
Her first postdoc was located at IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia in Rome in the laboratory of Prof. P. Calabresi, where she investigated synaptic plasticity after cell transplantation in Parkinson’s disease (F7 REPLACES EU network) supported by Tegger post-doc scholarship. In 2013 she was recruited back to Lund to establish an electrophysiology platform in the field of cell reprogramming as part of Prof. M. Parmar’s group. Here she led projects on in vivo neuronal reprogramming with support from SSMF (Swedish Society for Medical Research) and Parkinson's Research Foundation.
In 2017, Daniella was awarded an Establishment grant from Swedish Research Council and has since then been leading her own research group (appointed as Associate Senior Lecturer) with a focus on direct reprogramming and GABAergic interneurons both in situ in the living mouse brain, and in in vitro using human somatic cells. For these projects, she has been awarded the Jeansson prize in Sweden (2019).
In 2021, Daniella was appointed as a Wallenberg Academy Fellow, which is a career program established by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.
Popular science summary for Jeansson Award
Editorial Research Topic at Frontiers
EFRAIN CEPEDA-PRADO
Postdoctoral fellow
Biography
Efrain studies the synaptic integration and connectivity of in vivo reprogrammed mouse and human neurons, with the aim of developing future therapies for diseases such as Parkinson's disease or Schizophrenia. He is using techniques such as patch-clamp electrophysiology, 3D morphology, and RNA sequencing at a single-cell level. A scholarship from Lund University supports him.
Academic Background
Dr. rer. nat. Natural sciences - Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany.
M.Sc. - Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.
B.Sc. - Pontifical Xavierian University, Bogotá, Colombia.
SRISAIYINI KIDNAPILLAI
Research Engineer
Biography
Srisaiyini’s Ph.D. studies at Deakin University, Australia focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms of commonly prescribed Bipolar disorder drugs in order to understand how they bring about therapeutic effects (2015-2018). After joining the Ottosson Lab in 2019, she has been working on in vivo direct reprogramming of glial cells into interneurons. She has been supported by Wenner Gren postdoctoral fellowship for education in Sweden (2020-).
Academic Background
Doctor of Philosophy (Medicine) – Deakin University, Australia
Masters in Genetic Diagnostics -University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Bachelor of Science (Medical Bioscience) - Monash University, Australia
Publications
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Kidnapillai S, Ottosson DR. Functional Assessment of Direct Reprogrammed Neurons In Vitro and In Vivo. Methods Mol Biol (August 2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1601-7_13.
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Bruzelius A, Kidnapillai S, Drouin-Ouellet J, Stoker T, Barker RA, Rylander Ottosson D. Reprogramming Human Adult Fibroblasts into GABAergic Interneurons. Cells. 2021;10(12):3450. Published 2021 Dec 8. doi:10.3390/cells10123450
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Birtele B, Sharma Y, Kidnapillai S, Lau S, Stoker T.B., Barker R.A., Rylander Ottosson D, Drouin‐Ouellet J, Parmar M. Dual modulation of neuron-specific microRNA and the REST complex promotes functional maturation of human adult induced neurons. Federation of European Biochemical Society letters, 2019; 593 (23); 3370-3380.
ANDREAS BRUZELIUS
PhD Student
Biography
Andreas' Ph.D. studies at Lund University are focused on disease modeling by using the direct conversion of adult human fibroblasts into GABAergic interneurons. He learned electrophysiology in the Ottosson lab which has become one of his key techniques. Apart from his own projects, he is part of many collaborations with other research groups where he performs whole-cell patch-clamp experiments.
Academic Background
Masters in Molecular Biology – Lund University, Sweden
Bachelor of Science (Molecular Biology) – Lund University, Sweden
Publications
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Bruzelius A, Kidnapillai S, Drouin-Ouellet J, Stoker T, Barker RA, Rylander Ottosson D. Reprogramming Human Adult Fibroblasts into GABAergic Interneurons. Cells. 2021;10(12):3450. Published 2021 Dec 8. doi:10.3390/cells10123450
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Fiorenzano A, Sozzi E, Birtele M, Kajtez J, Giacomoni J, Nilsson F, Bruzelius A, Sharma Y, Zhang Y, Mattsson B, Emnéus J, Ottosson DR, Storm P, Parmar M. Single-cell transcriptomics captures features of human midbrain development and dopamine neuron diversity in brain organoids. Nat Commun. 2021 Dec 15;12(1):7302. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-27464-5.
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Bruzelius A, Hidalgo I, Boza-Serrano A, Hjelmér AG, Tison A, Deierborg T, Bengzon J, Ramos-Moreno T. The human bone marrow harbors a CD45- CD11B+ cell progenitor permitting rapid microglia-like cell derivative approaches. Stem Cells Transl Med. 2021 Apr;10(4):582-597. doi: 10.1002/sctm.20-0127.
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Shrigley, S., Nilsson, F., Mattsson, B., Fiorenzano, A., Mudannayake, J., Bruzelius, A., Ottosson, D. R., Björklund, A., Hoban, D. B., & Parmar, M. (2021). Grafts Derived from an α-Synuclein Triplication Patient Mediate Functional Recovery but Develop Disease-Associated Pathology in the 6-OHDA Model of Parkinson's Disease. Journal of Parkinson's disease, 11(2), 515–528. https://doi.org/10.3233/JPD-202366
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Giacomoni J, Bruzelius A, Stamouli Christina-Anastasia and Rylander Ottosson D. Direct conversion of Human Stem cell-derived Glial Progenitor Cells into GABAergic Interneurons. Cells, 2020; 9 (11); 2451.
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Nolbrant S, Giacomoni J, Hoban D.B, Bruzelius A, Birtele M, Chandler-Militello D, Pereira M, Rylander Ottosson D, Goldman S.A and Parmar M. Direct Reprogramming of Human Fetal- and Stem-cell derived Glial Progenitor Cells into Midbrain Dopaminergic Neurons. Stem Cell Reports, 2020; (15); 1-14.
CHRISTINA-ANASTASIA STAMOULI
PhD Student
Biography
After completing her master's studies in Biomedicine at Lund University and working as a research assistant in the lab, Christina is now pursuing her Ph.D., from March 2022. She is focusing on generating interneurons by direct reprogramming of glial cells and dissecting the molecular mechanisms underlying the cellular decision during the reprogramming process.
Academic Background
Master of Science (Biomedicine)-Lund University, Sweden
Bachelor of Science (Molecular Biology and Genetics)- Democritus University of Thrace (DUTh), Greece
Publications
Giacomoni J, Bruzelius A, Stamouli Christina-Anastasia and Rylander Ottosson D. Direct conversion of Human Stem cell-derived Glial Progenitor Cells into GABAergic Interneurons. Cells, 2020; 9 (11); 2451.
CONSTANZA ARETIO MEDINA
PhD Student
Biography
Constanza completed her master’s degree in advanced therapies at the Francisco de Vitoria University and after finishing her internship at Lund University working with stem cells for regenerative therapy, she joined the Ottosson group to study the integration of human interneurons in organotypic cultures. She will focus on studying the transplantation of these cells into different in vivo systems and assess their maturation, function and integration into the neural circuitry.
Academic Background
Master in Advanced Therapies-Francisco de Vitoria University, Spain
Bachelor of Science (Pharmacy)-University of Seville, Spain
Publications
Palma-Tortosa, S., Martínez-Curiel, R., Aretio-Medina, C., Avaliani, N., Kokaia, Z. Organotypic Cultures of Adult Human Cortex as an Ex vivo Model for Human Stem Cell Transplantation and Validation. J. Vis. Exp. (190), e64234, doi:10.3791/64234 (2022).
Martinez-Curiel R, Jansson L, Tsupykov O, Avaliani N, Aretio-Medina C, Hidalgo I, Monni E, Bengzon J, Skibo G, Lindvall O, Kokaia Z, Palma-Tortosa S. Oligodendrocytes in human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cortical grafts remyelinate adult rat and human cortical neurons. Stem Cell Reports. 2023 May 10:S2213-6711(23)00144-3. doi: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2023.04.010. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37236198.
AURÉLIE DELPHINE VORGEAT
Master's Student
Biography
Aurélie is in her second year of master’s in Molecular Biology (Medical Biology) at Lund University and joined Ottosson’s lab for her master’s thesis. By trying different reprogramming cocktail, she is working on improving the generation of PV GABAergic interneurons using direct reprogramming of glial progenitor cells.
Academic Background
Master’s in Molecular Biology (Medical Biology) - Lund University, Sweden
Bachelor of Science (Life Sciences) – Engineer school of Biology-Biochemistry-Biotechnologies, Lyon, France