Lab Members
William W. Seeley, MD - Principal Investigator
Dr. Seeley attended medical school at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), where he first encountered patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in 1999, during a research elective with Bruce Miller. He then completed a neurology residency at Harvard Medical School, training at the Massachusetts General and Brigham & Women's Hospitals. Returning to UCSF for a Behavioral Neurology fellowship, with Bruce Miller, Dr. Seeley developed expertise in the differential diagnosis and treatment of patients with neurodegenerative disease. Struck by the focality of these illnesses, he began to question how events at the molecular level could target small subsets of the brain's more than 20 billion neurons. This biological problem, referred to as selective vulnerability, has become the primary focus of Dr. Seeley’s research. For more information about our recent research, click here.
Lea T. Grinberg, MD, PhD
Dr. Grinberg is a neuropathologist specializing in brain aging and associated disorders. In 2003, Dr. Grinberg, along with multidisciplinary colleagues, founded a brain bank in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which has developed into an extremely prolific and highly regarded institution. She received her Ph.D in 2006, studying the neuropathology of frontotemporal lobar degeneration. From 2007 to 2009, Dr. Grinberg acquired expertise in neuroanatomy and in the use of state-of-the-art methods for tridimensional brain reconstruction. This knowledge is being utilized for studying the neuropathological counterparts of common MRI findings in the elderly, which are still based on assumption. In addition, Dr. Grinberg has a special interest in the brainstem, and her most recent work has focused on this brain area. Currently, Dr. Grinberg is the P.I of a project funded by the Alzheimer's Association to perform a multi-ethnic neuropathological comparison of patients with Alzheimer's disease.
Stephanie E. Gaus, PhD, MMSc
Stephanie joined the Seeley lab in October 2007 as an Associate Specialist. Her background is in sleep and circadian rhythms research, including neuroanatomy. She completed a doctorate in neurobiology (CB Saper, Harvard University), a master's in medical science (Harvard Medical School), and a postdoc focusing on narcolepsy (E Mignot, Stanford University/Howard Hughes Medical Institute). In the Seeley lab, Stephanie is helping to characterize von Economo neurons in health and disease. Using immunohistochemical and molecular biological techniques, Stephanie is exploring the normal and pathological neuroanatomy and pathology of these neurons.
Manu Sidhu, BS
Manu joined the lab as a research associate in 2007. She helps conduct human neuropathological experiments and assists with brain banking.
Cong Christine Guo, PhD
Christine joined the Seeley lab in October 2010 as a post-doctoral fellow. She received a B.Sc in Biological Sciences in 2005 from Peking University and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience in 2010 from the Stanford University School of Medicine. She has broad research experience, from molecular biology and genetics to electrophysiology and systems neuroscience during her graduate study. Currently, she is focusing on understanding selective vulnerability and network connectivity in health and in neurodegenerative disease, using modern neuroimaging techniques.
Andrew Trujillo, BA
Andrew joined the lab in June 2011 as an Imaging Research Associate. He graduated from Pomona College in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts in Cognitive Science. Andrew comes to the lab after having completed a two year apprenticeship at Stanford University where he worked on neuroimaging projects related to reward processing. Andrew assists with fMRI data collection and analysis across multiple projects in the lab.
Alex Larkin, BS
Alex joined the lab in July 2011 as a Research Associate. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a BSc in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology and a background in the regulation of neocortical development by transcription factors. She aids in brain banking and neuropathological experiments conducted in the lab.
Alissa Nana, PhD
Alissa joined the Seeley lab in July 2011 as a post-doctoral fellow. Her background is in neurodegeneration research. Alissa completed a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Science in 2004 and a PhD in Anatomy in 2009 from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where she investigated the variable pattern of cortical neuronal loss in Huntington’s disease. In the Seeley lab she is investigating the selective vulnerability of VENs in FTD.
Tanav Popli, BA
Tanav Popli joined the lab in August 2011 after completing his B.A. in Biology and Chemistry from Kalamazoo College. He previously worked in a pediatric neurology lab at UCSF, focusing on the molecular biology and genetics of developmental disorders, but now assists with brain bank maintenance and neuropathological experiments as a staff research associate.
Former Lab Members
Efstathios (Stathis) D. Gennatas, MBBS AICSM
Stathis joined the lab in fall 2008 as an Asst. Specialist and worked on neuroimaging. He graduated from medical school at Imperial College London in June 2008 with an MBBS (Medicine) and a BSc in Psychology & Psychiatry. Stathis is now a graduate student in Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania.
Helen Juan Zhou, PhD
Helen joined the Seeley lab in October 2008 as a post-doctoral fellow. Her background is in structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging analyses, including structure segmentation, activation detection, and connectivity inference. Helen completed a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship and is now Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore.
Clarissa M. Bush, BA
Clarissa joined the Seeley Lab September 2009 as an Associate Specialist. Her background is in human physiology. Clarissa was lead neurohistology technician, project manager and developer, and lab supervisor.
Richard Crawford, BS
Rich joined the lab as a research associate in 2006. Rich has developed extensive expertise in acquisition and analysis of structural and functional imaging data. He organized and performed these analyses and interacted with members of collaborating research groups.
Marcelo Macedo, B.S. and Eun-Joo (E.J.) Kim, M.D., worked together on VEN selective vulnerability in FTD. Marcelo has returned for post-baccalaureate premedical studies and EJ has returned to South Korea to work as a neurologist specializing in dementia.
Medical Students
Drs. Danielle Carlin and Carolina Court each completed one-year medical student research fellowships in the lab, studying VEN selective vulnerability. Both are now residents in psychiatry. Iris Ma (UCSF 3rd year medical student) and Dean Sasaki (UCSD undergrad senior) completed summer research fellowships.
Collaborators
DeArmond Neuropathology Research Laboratory, UCSF
Greicius Neuroimaging Laboratory, Stanford University
Allman Lab, California Insitute of Technology
Geschwind Neurogenetics Lab, UCLA
Hof Lab, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
