Neuroimmunology

Emilia Favuzzi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Wu Tsai Institute at Yale University. She grew up in Italy and received a B.S. in Biology and a M.S. in Neurobiology from Sapienza University of Rome. She did her doctoral training at the Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante (Spain) and the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at King’s College London. Her graduate research focused on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of inhibitory circuit development and plasticity in the cerebral cortex. In her postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute, she focused on microglia-inhibitory synapse interactions during development and discovered that specialized microglia differentially engage with specific synapse types. Her past work opened a new avenue in understanding neuroimmune crosstalk by showing that neuroimmune interactions within the brain may be as specific as those between neurons. This novel conceptual framework is the foundation of the Favuzzi lab focused on the immune and glial mechanisms underlying brain wiring and function, with an emphasis on (1) interactions among neuronal and non-neuronal cells and (2) brain-body communication. Over the years, Emilia was awarded numerous prizes such as the Beddington Medal from the British Society for Developmental Biology, the Krieg Cortical Kudos Scholar Award from the Cajal Club, the Next Generation Leader by the Allen Institute, and the Gruber International Research Award.

After graduating magna cum laude from Princeton University, Dr. Hafler earned his MD/PhD from Harvard Medical School and completed a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Connie Cepko's laboratory at Harvard.  He completed an ophthalmology residency at Yale School of Medicine/Yale-New Haven Hospital and a fellowship in retina at Mass. Eye and Ear as a Heed Fellow where he specialized in Inherited Retinal Degenerations.  Following his fellowship, he received a K08 Clinical Scientist Development Award from the NIH and joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School where he served on Mass. Eye and Ear’s Retina Service and in the Emergency and Trauma Eye Care Department.  He has a laboratory in the Department of Ophthalmology in the Yale School of Medicine where he recently generated the first single-cell human retinal transcriptomic atlas and identified the cell types driving macular degeneration. He recently received the American Society for Clinical Investigation Young Physician Scientist Award, the Thome Memorial Foundation Award for AMD Research, and was named the William R. Orthwein, Jr. ’38 Yale Scholar. He studies macular degeneration and glaucoma using single-cell transcriptomics to identify novel therapeutic approaches.

Dr. Sansing completed her residency in Neurology in 2006 followed by a Vascular Neurology fellowship from 2006-2008, both at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Her clinical interests include acute ischemic stroke and intracerebral hemorrhage as well as other complex neurovascular diseases. Following clinical training, she completed a Master of Science in Translational Research at Penn studying immune mechanisms of injury after intracerebral hemorrhage. She then joined the faculty at the University of Connecticut and Hartford Hospital in 2010, where she was active in the Departments of Neurology, Neuroscience, Neurosurgery, and Immunology. Dr. Sansing came to Yale in the summer of 2014, where she continues her work in cerebrovascular diseases and neuro-inflammation through basic, translational, and clinical studies. She leads a NIH-funded laboratory identifying immunological treatment targets for stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, vascular cognitive impairment and dementia. She has received numerous national and international awards for her research, including the Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association, the Derek Denny-Brown Neurological Scholar Award from the American Neurological Association, the Michael S. Pessin Stroke Leadership Award from the American Academy of Neurology, and is an elected member of the Henry Kunkel Society and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Marc Schneeberger Pané received his B.S. in Pharmacy from Barcelona University, Catalonia in 2010. Next, he received his M.S. in Biomedicine from Barcelona University, Catalonia in 2011. He then studied how the powerhouse of the cell (mitochondria) is responsible for controlling whole body energy balance and metabolism in the canonical site for energy balance control (hypothalamus) with Marc Claret, PhD and earned his Ph.D. in Biomedicine at the Barcelona University, Catalonia in 2015. He then became a KAVLI postdoctoral fellow and a Pathway to Independence fellow in Prof. Jeffrey M.Friedman laboratory at The Rockefeller University. There he conducted whole mount activity maps in energy states to decipher the role of two novel subsets of neurons in the Dorsal Raphe Nucleus of the brainstem in energy balance control. He joined the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor in July 2022.The Schneeberger Pané laboratory employs state-of-the-art technologies in neuroscience combining unbiased whole mount imaging of circuits, activity and vasculature; molecular profiling single-cell gene expression technologies, neuoromodulation (optogenetics, and chemogenetics) to understand the fundamental principles in the brain governing homeostasis. The overarching goal of the laboratory is to advance in the understanding of how neuronal, immune and vascular networks coordinately control homeostasis, with a focus on energy homeostasis.

Dr. Zakiniaeiz’s work broadly focuses on investigating the neural and molecular circuitry underlying several types of addictions and at-risk populations, such as alcohol use disorder, tobacco smoking, prenatally cocaine-exposed adolescents, and gambling disorder, using two neuroimaging techniques – functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET). Her work also emphasizes the importance of sex as a biological variable in the study of addiction.

Le Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Neurology and of Neuroscience at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Zhang’s research focuses on the immune responses of the central nervous system in neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder, and Multiple sclerosis, using cutting-edge single cell technologies.Dr. Zhang obtained her B.S. in Biological Science from Peking University in 2004 and her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Hong Kong in 2010, where she studied epigenetic regulation in aging and senescence with Dr. Zhongjun Zhou. Dr. Zhang continued her training in epigenetics as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Zhaolan Zhou at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in the field of neuroscience and as a research fellow with Dr. Jordan Kreidberg at Harvard Medical School in the area of development. After a short journey at Pfizer in the R&D of neuroscience, Dr. Zhang joined Yale School of Medicine as Associate Research Scientist, leading single cell research in neurological disorders, and started her current position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology in 2020.