NEWS & EVENTS
Postdoc Farewell and Celebration of Two Publications
The Conte Center bids a fond farewell to Dr. Henna Jäntti, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Beth Stevens. Dr. Jäntti was a member of the induced pluripotent stem cell team, and her research focused on developing an induced human neuron model for schizophrenia risk genes and characterizing how these genes affect human neuron and mouse astrocyte interactions in a co-culture system. After finishing her fellowship, Dr. Jäntti returned to Finland, and became Academy Research Fellow at the A.I. Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences in the University of Eastern Finland. All the best to Dr. Jäntti in her future research endeavors!
The Conte Center celebrates the publication of two new papers by trainees Drs. Matthew Baum and Nicole Scott-Hewitt in high-profile journals. Dr. Baum led the efforts on the paper “CSMD1 regulates brain complement activity and circuit development,” published in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity (doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2024.03.041). The paper investigates the role of the protein CSMD1 as a regulator of complement activity in the brain and its effects on synaptic pruning by microglia during neurodevelopment. Dr. Scott-Hewitt led the efforts on the paper “Microglial-derived C1q integrates into neuronal ribonucleoprotein complexes and impacts protein homeostasis in the aging brain,” published in Cell (doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.058). The paper discovers and characterizes a novel, non-traditional role for complement protein C1q in age-dependent neuronal interactions. Congratulations to the lead scientists and their teams on these significant contributions to the field!