Tejaz Ajit graduated from UNC Chapel Hill in Spring 2022 with a B.S. in Biology, B.A in Political Science, and a minor in chemistry. During his time in the Cohen lab, he studied TDP-43 proteinopathy in sALS under the mentorship of Baggio Evangelista. He plans on completing a masters in physiology and hopes to eventually attend medical school. In his free time, he enjoys playing and watching soccer.

Julie is an MD/PhD student who completed the first two years of the UNC School of Medicine curriculum and then joined the Cohen Lab and the Cell Biology and Physiology Department full-time in 2019. She graduated from Pomona College in 2015, where she studied the neuroelectrophysiology and the molecular mechanisms of memory impairment in Alzheimer’s Disease. After graduating and before moving to North Carolina, Julie spent two years in Baltimore’s Biomedical Research Center working as an IRTA Fellow at the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. While there, she worked to develop and characterize novel genome engineering tools, such as CRISPR/Cas9 and AAV vector technology, to manipulate the rodent central nervous system with regional and cell-type specificity. She also worked on developing models of Parkinson’s Disease and HIV-associated Neurocognitive disorders. In the Cohen lab, Julie is researching the role of aberrant TDP-43 species in proteostasis impairment in ALS, FTLD, and other age-related TDP-43 proteinopathies using in vivo and in vitro approaches based on a novel mouse model of disease. She is also investigating the interactions of ALS/FTLD-associated mutations in non-TDP-43 genes on TDP-43 aggregation. When not in the lab or clinic, Julie likes to spend her time outside walking, running, hiking, and biking. She is also a big fan of wine and cheese boards, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Miles graduated from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington with a B.S. in Marine Biology. Soon after, he worked as a research technician in the lab of Dr. Nancy Andrews at Duke University where he focused on characterizing in vivo models of iron dyshomeostasis. For his graduate work, Miles joined the lab of Dr. Aaron Bowman at Vanderbilt University where he investigated the role of manganese homeostasis on neuroprotective pathways (autophagy, IGF/AKT signaling) in Huntington’s disease. After his PhD, he joined the lab of Dr. Cohen at UNC in 2020 where he is investigating key pathological mechanisms of tau in Alzheimer’s disease and how to target these therapeutically. I love cruising to warm locales with my wife (COVID, please stop…), hanging with our three cats, fishing, gardening, gaming, and a good IPA.

Shannon is a second-year graduate student in the Neuroscience Curriculum. She graduated from University of Maryland in 2016 with a degree in Microbiology. She worked as a Lab Manager in Dr. Frank Shewmaker’s Lab at Uniformed Services University where she examined the biophysical characteristics of the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)-associated protein FUS in cell culture. She is continuing her research in ALS through a co-mentorship with Sarah Cohen and Todd Cohen studying the impact of ALS pathology on organelle contacts and dynamics.

Suvleen is a fourth year undergraduate student at UNC Chapel Hill. She is majoring in biology and minoring in neuroscience and chemistry with the intent to attend medical school. Under the guidance of her mentor Carli, she has been studying the interactions of certain proteins at the neuronal synapse in hopes of helping to illuminate the mechanism behind caspase-mediated early tau cleavage.

Baggio is a third-year Ph.D. candidate and NSF fellow in the Department of Cell Biology and Phisiology. Before coming to UNC for graduate studies, Baggio received a B.S. in Molecular and Microbiology at the University of Central Florida (UCF). There he studied epigenetic regulation of alpha-synuclein in Parkinson’s disease in the laboratory of Dr. Yoon-Seong Kim. From there, Baggio collaborated with Dr. Dmitri Kolpashchikov in the UCF Department of Chemistry where he designed a biosensor for pathological alpha-synuclein. After graduating in May 2017, Baggio joined the lab of Dr. Kenneth Teter where he investigated the biochemical properties of a molecular chaperone, Protein Disulfide Isomerase, and its ability to disaggregate alpha-synuclein and amyloid beta fibrils as a pan-therapeutic for neurodegenerative proteinopathies. Now in the Cohen lab, Baggio is investigating 1) a gene therapy strategy for eliminating ALS associated TDP-43 proteinopathy in vivo using Protein Disulfide Isomerase and 2) T-cell-mediated neuroinflammation in ALS.