I am Research Associate with a PhD from the lab of Prof. Laura Nilson, Department of Biology, McGill. My PhD work focused on the signalling inputs that determine cell fate decisions in the ovary of Drosophila. This graduate work gave me expertise in genetics, developmental biology, fluorescent imaging, and molecular biology. In the Munter lab, I am studying the functions of the mammalian rhomboid RHBDL3. I also handle lab organization, purchasing, and the mouse colony.

Contact: scott.devito at mcgill.ca

I am PhD candidate in the Integrated Program in Neuroscience (IPN) at McGill. I first joined McGill in 2016 to complete my bachelor's degree in Physiology during which I accomplished an undergraduate research project where I studied the transmission of painful stimuli in the nervous system of C. Elegans in the Hendricks Laboratory. In 2019, I began a master’s project in neuroscience within the Munter laboratory focused on the physiological relationship between the rhomboid protease RHBDL4 and the Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP), in particular its relevance for Alzheimer’s disease using murine models of the disease. In 2021, I chose to fast-track to a PhD to begin an original project describing novel functions of APP within cerebral glucose metabolism in vitro and in vivo.

Contact: ylauna.penalva at mail.mcgill.ca

I did my Bachelor’s degree at McGill University in Anatomy & Cell Biology with a minor in Pharmacology and Therapeutics. I entered the Master’s program in Pharmacology and Therapeutics at McGill in the Munter lab and fast-tracked to the Doctorate in Pharmacology program the following year. My research focuses on the role of cholesterol metabolism and lipid dysregulation in Alzheimer’s disease. I am particularly interested in the role of the cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) and amyloid precursor protein (APP) on on memory and brain physiology in Alzheimer’s disease animal models.

Contact: jasmine.phenix at mcgill.ca

Contact: jose.vazquezcoba at mail.mcgill.ca

As a shared student co-supervised by Dr. Irah King, an intestinal immunologist, my project focuses on the interaction between intestinal cholesterol metabolism and brain health in the context of Alzheimer's Disease. I study the intestinal and systemic immune response to increased LDL-cholesterol in CETP transgenic mice fed a high-cholesterol diet. The growing relevance of the gut microbiome in the progression of neurodegenerative diseases is another focus of the project, and we are actively working to determine if a high cholesterol diet leads to microbial dysbiosis, which may in turn affect cognition in our mouse model. We are also interested in the role of CETP on intestinal barrier function and host immune sensitivity to microbial antigens.

Contact: clara.macmahon at mail.mcgill.ca

Past lab member

Felix received his Master’s degree (German University Diploma) in Biochemistry from Freie University Berlin. He performed his Master’s thesis in the Munter lab investigating the relationship of amino-acid hydrophobicity and formation of Amyloid-beta peptides (Oestereich et al., Biochemistry 2015). He worked on his PhD in Neuroscience as a member of the Integrated Neuroscience Program (IPN) at McGill University. Felix is investigated the impact of cholesterol metabolism and cholesterol metabolizing proteins on Alzheimer disease pathology. He is an expert in many biochemical techniques such as molecular biology, ELISA, western blot, qPCR, and MALDI-MS.

felix.oestereich@mail.mcgill.ca

Past lab member

Sandra receveid her Master’s degree (German University Diploma) in Biochemistry from Freie University Berlin. In her Master’s thesis, she investigated signaling pathways through bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) receptors. Being interested in signal transduction in general, Sandra joined the Munter lab at McGill University in September 2013 as a PhD student in the Pharmacology Graduate Program, completing her studies in 2018. Sandra’s research interests were focused on rhomboid proteases in the brain. She particularly investigated a potential link of rhomboid proteases to Alzheimer disease - which exists indeed: Paschkowsky et al., JBC 2016!

sandra.paschkowsky@mail.mcgill.ca

Past lab member

Sherilyn was a master student in our lab. She was working with the rhomboid protease RHBDL4. Is this protease physiologically relevant in Alzheimer's pathology?

Past team member

Sasen finished her master's thesis in 2019. She worked with Felix on the cholesterol metabolism project. Her emphasis was the link to the well-established risk factor gene ApoE e4.

Past lab member

Jackie was co-supervised by Dr. Jason Young, Department of Biochemistry, doing her Bsc project. She has taken on work on the RHBDL4 project and will search for interacting proteins.

Past Lab member

Jing joined us in February 2016 and is working on both themes, rhomboid proteases and cholesterol. She is our good soul of the lab!

Past lab member

Sebastian is a biochemistry student from Germany, who joined our lab for his Master's thesis project for 6 month. He studied changes in the brain of mice with altered cholesterol metabolism. 

Past team member

Paoula received her Bsc in Neuroscience from Emory University, Atlanta. She has managed our mouse colony for the first three years, and has established immunohistochemistry in our lab.

Past team member

Mehdi graduated from Freie University Berlin where students are encouraged to perform their Master's thesis in laboratories abroad - so Mehdi joined our lab for his thesis. He analyzed the impact of rhomboid proteases on Amyloid-beta formation using cell culture systems and was so productive that he became co-author on the JBC 2016 paper! Thank you for having joined our lab!

Leo Yu

Leo joined our lab for a full term 2015/2016 to do experiments on the impact of cholesterol on APP processing. 

Past team member

Mei joined us for one year 2015 and was doing a lot of molecular biology in our lab.

Erik Hameister

Erik studied Medicine in Mainz, Germany, and did a 3-months internship in our lab. He joined Felix’ project and investigated the influence of cholesterol on APP processing.

Anna Thrun

Anna studied Biochemistry at Free University Berlin and did a 3-months internship joining Sandra’s research project on rhomboid proteases. She received a German DAAD stipend.