Our current students for this year (fall 2020 – Summer 2021) are:

Michiel van der Zwan
Hi, my name is Michiel and I’m in my second year of master Neuroscience at the VU. I will follow my internship with Mandy in the group of Mark Verheijen where I will help in a project which investigates the role of astrocytes and microglia in an AD mice model. I started the 1st of february and plan to finish in july. 

Kevin Marinus
I was born and raised in Amsterdam. I have a background in Biomedical Sciences and with my current internship I am planning to finish my Master’s Neurosciences (VU). My Final Year’s project is together with Guus Smit, Ronald van Kesteren, and Suzanne Miedema. We will perform several follow-up experiments on Suzanne’s previous publication, where she looked into the proteomes of Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients that show autosomal dominant inheritance patterns (FTD-GRN, FTD-MAPT, FTD-C9). As the results from this proteomics study showed abnormal expression of several mitochondrial proteins in FTD-GRN, we are going to look into the role of mitochondria in the pathophysiology of FTD-GRN. Among other things, we will perform a high-content screen on primary cultures of mouse neurons that have a GRN knockdown. My project started in February and is planned until the end of July. Hopefully these experiments will yield interesting and ready-to-publish results!

Anna Lampe
My name is Anna Lampe and I study Biomedical Sciences. I am in my third year right now. My supervisor is Guus Smit and the internship will last until June. During my internship I will be studying the post-mortem brain samples of FTD patients by looking at the proteomics analyses of these patients. I will compare those to non-diseased brain samples and eventually also to patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Adlin Abramain
My name is Adlin Abramian and I’m currently doing the master Neurosciences at the VU. My internship is with Aline Mak on the role of astrocytes in persistent engram ensembles in the medial prefrontal cortex. I started in February and will stay until the end of June.

Tom van Leeuwen
I am a first year master student studying Biomedical Sciences at the VU and specializing in neurobiology. I am working within Sabine Spijkers group under daily supervision of Femke Roig Kuhn untill the end of June. I am studying the extracellular matrix in a rat model of depression.

Megan Groenewoud
My name is Megan Groenewoud, currently I am in my final year of the bachelor Health and Life sciences at the VU Amsterdam. I am doing my internship with Fran van Heusden, under the supervision of Ronald van Kesteren. My thesis project is focused on the effect of the inhibition of PV-interneurons on cognitive deficits in the APP/PS1 mouse model of Alzheimers disease at 4 and 6 months of age. I will be analyzing data from different behavioral tests, for example the nesting test. I have started this internship in January, and will finish at the end of April.

Femke Verburg
Hi everyone! My name is Femke Verburg, I am 20 years old and come from a small town called Zwammerdam somewhere in between Leiden and Utrecht. Currently I’m in the first year of the VU Neurosciences Master’s program, which I am combining with the Philosophy of Neuroscience program. I am doing my internship (Feb-June) with Payam Safavi, in the team of Sabine Spijker, on the cognitive and ECM changes in mice after social defeat. Hope to meet you all in real life soon!

Nadine van der Linden
Hi, my name is Nadine van der Linden, I am 20 years old and I am currently in the third year of the bachelor Biomedical Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit. I am doing my internship in the research group of Ronald van Kesteren under supervision of Agnieszka Moskal and Titia Gebuis. The project focusses on the question how RANBP1 haploinsufficiency in 22q deletion syndrome affects nuclear export and mRNA expression in iPSC-derived neurons. I will work on this project from February until the end of May and I am really excited to learn more about this project.

Nine Kok
My name is Nine Kok. I am currently in my first year of the Biomedical Sciences master, with Neurobiology as my specialization. I am doing my internship with Julia van Adrichem, on the role of interneurons on the formation and reactivation of memory engrams in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. I will be working on this project for five months, from the start of February until the end of June.

Jana Quismundo
I am Jana Mariel Quismundo, 2nd year MSc Neuroscience. My direct supervisor is Mio Mitric together with Michel van den Oever. The internship is lasting from 1 Feb – 25 Jun 2021. The internship is about neuroanatomical and functional mapping of fear ensemble inputs to the mPFC. I am also helping with mice behavior experiments (alcohol self-administration), supervised by Esther Visser.

Zuzanna Baran
Hi, my name is Zuzanna Baran and I am from Poland. I obtained my bachelor’s degree in Human Biology and currently I am a first-year student of the double-degree Neurosciences (Research) Master Programme “Neurasmus” at the Vrije University. I am pursuing my internship in Molecular Engrams team under the supervision of Biswajit Moharana. The project concerns the generation of circuit specific synaptome maps, more specifically I will set up and validate eGRASP (GFP-Reconstitution Across Synaptic Partners) technology in order to label synapses between interconnected brain regions and perform FASS (Fluorescence-Activated Synapse Sorting) to isolate specific populations of labelled synapses from the mouse brain. My internship started at the beginning of February and it will last till July. I am really excited about being part of the MCN scientific community

Cato Romero
My name is Cato Romero. I am a second year Neuroscience master student at the VU. I have a background in Biological Psychology and Statistics. For my internship project here at the MCN, I will utilise single-cell RNA sequencing data to study the expression of synaptic genes between and within cell types of the mouse brain. Specifically, we are investigating whether neurons of the same type expresses different synaptic genes and what biological processes these genes are a part of. My daily supervisor for this project is Frank Koopmans and my VU supervisor is Guus Smit.

From left to right and right to left: Anna, Femke, Cato, Megan, Zuzanna, Nadine, Nine, Michiel