Group Members

Bio: I am a Research Associate in the Nott group at the UK Dementia Research Institute at Imperial. I joined the lab after completing my PhD, which was funded by the Darwin Trust of Edinburgh studentship at King’s College London in the lab of Dr. Fiona Wardle. My PhD research project characterised cis-regulatory elements of TBXT, a transcription factor involved in metastatic cancers in lung, prostate and breast tissue, and in a rare cancer of the spinal column called chordoma. During my PhD, I visited the lab of Dr. Gómez Skarmeta at Andalusian Centre for Developmental Biology (CABD) in Seville, Spain on an European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) fellowship for extended training on assays and tools used in gene regulation studies. Prior to starting my PhD, I worked as a Research Assistant in the lab of Prof. Faith Osier at Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), Wellcome Trust, Kilfi, where I led a recombinant protein expression and protein micro-array facility in a malaria study. My current project in the Nott group exploits different chromatin and epigenetic assays to characterise enhancer maps associated with neurodegenerative disease risk variants.

Email: r.yaa@imperial.ac.uk

Bio: I am a Research Associate in the Nott group at Imperial, within the department of Brain Sciences, part of the UK Dementia Research Institute. I completed my PhD in Genetic Epidemiology, entitled “Host genetic factors underlying the link between the microbiome and rheumatoid arthritis”, with the Department of Twin Research at King’s College London, supervised by Claire Steves and Frances Williams. I obtained my degree, BSc (Hons.) Medical Sciences from the University of Exeter. During my degree I undertook a research year at the University of Bristol and the Bristol Brain Bank investigating the role of the renin angiotensin system in Alzheimer’s disease; This work sparked my interest in Alzheimer’s disease. Following my PhD I continued at KCL as a Research Associate, before joining Imperial College London in the lab of Abbas Dehgan affiliated with the UKDRI to characterise the metabolomic profile of Alzheimer’s disease. In the Nott group, my focus will be investigating the transcriptome and epigenome of the Alzheimer’s disease brain. My aim moving forward is to continue to contribute to the field of Alzheimer’s disease research.

Email: pmwells@ic.ac.uk

Bio: I am a PhD student in the Nott lab at the UK Dementia Research Institute and I am enrolled in the Clinical Medicine Research (Brain Sciences) program at Imperial College London. Before I joined the lab, I completed my B.Sc. in Applied Biology and M.Sc. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, Germany. As part of this, I performed a research project for my bachelor in the Institute of Molecular Psychiatry at the University of Bonn on the characterization of a glia-specific knock-out mouse line, hereby developing a keen interest for the field of neurological diseases. To complete my M.Sc., I investigated molecular processes occurring during osteogenesis using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). In the Nott lab I plan to integrate my experience on working with iPSCs to elucidate functional relevance of neurodegenerative disease-associated risk variants.

Email: j.transfeld21@imperial.ac.uk

Bio: I am a graduate student in the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London sponsored by the UK Dementia Research Institute (UKDRI). Before starting my PhD in the Nott lab, I completed both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biotechnology at Hochschule Mannheim, University of Applied Sciences. During this time, I took the opportunity to gain research experience at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, the Centro de Investigaciones Biologicas, and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). After various experiences in research, I realised that my curiosity was primarily focused on deciphering the many questions surrounding the brain and applying the latest multi-omics technologies to answer them. Having witnessed my grandfather suffer from vascular dementia for almost a decade, I dedicate my PhD to researching the vascular component of the brain in the context of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Recognizing that AD is predominantly influenced by genetics, particularly with a significant portion of AD genetic risk variants located in non-coding regions, my approach is to investigate the environmentally responsive enhancer landscape of cerebrovascular cell types. By combining various enrichment strategies tailored for cerebrovascular cell types with an epigenetic assay called CUT&Tag, which enables the examination of regulatory elements such as active enhancers across the entire genome, I aim to elucidate at the bulk and single-cell level whether cerebrovascular-specific enhancers are impacted by AD genetic risk variants.

Email: k.ziegler21@imperial.ac.uk

Bio: I am a PhD student at the UK Dementia Research Institute within Imperial College London. I received Imperial’s Presidential Scholarship to carry out my research under the supervision of Dr Alexi Nott on characterisation of gene regulatory networks of the brain vasculature that drive age-associated genetic susceptibility and genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Prior to my PhD studies, I completed my MSc in Applied Genomics at Imperial College London and my BSc in Biology at Queen Mary University of London. My MSc project was focused on the identification of cell type specific risk in neurodegenerative disorders using integrative analysis of chromatin interaction data and H3K27ac distribution.

Email: aydan.askarova21@imperial.ac.uk

Bio: I am pursuing a PhD as a Research Assistant in Dr. Alexi Nott’s Group at the UK Dementia Research Institute within Imperial College London. My project is focused on investigating epigenomic changes in the immune and vascular cells of the ageing brain. Before starting my PhD, I completed a BSc in Biology and Medical Laboratory Research at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. During my fourth year, I completed a project investigating enhancers important for early haematopoietic development at the University of Oxford. I continued my studies by pursuing an MSc in Molecular Neurosciences at the University of Amsterdam. I completed two research projects during my MSc. During the first project, I investigated H3K79 methylation by Dot1L in neuronal cells at the University of Amsterdam. I visited the Nott group to undertake my second research project. Here, I worked on elucidating H3K27ac in brain vascular cell types. I enjoyed my time here so much that I decided to stay in the lab as a research assistant/PhD student!

Email: j.van-dalen22@imperial.ac.uk

Bio: I am completing my Master’s in Applied Genomics, at Imperial and have joined Dr. Alexi Nott’s lab for my research project, where I will be working on my dissertation. I completed my BSc in Biology in Beirut before coming to London and I’m excited to work with the lab and explore the epigenetics of neurodegenerative disease. My project will focus on understanding the differences in gene regulatory pathways between brain cell types.

Email: charbel.gergian23@imperial.ac.uk

Bio: I am an MRes student in Experimental Neuroscience at Imperial College London. Previously, I also completed my BSc in Biological Sciences at Imperial. During my first two MRes rotations, I characterized the TSC1 epilepsy model and explored the effect of MSK1/2 on APP processing in Alzheimer's disease. Currently, I am in my third rotation in Dr. Alexi Nott's lab supervised by Kevin Ziegler. My project focuses on the promoter epigenetic landscape of neurovascular cell types in Alzheimer's disease. I am passionate about neuroscience research and plan to pursue further PhD studies in this field.

Email: andy.xie20@imperial.ac.uk