People
Laura Pellegrini, PhD
Group Leader
Laura Pellegrini joined the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at KCL after receiving her Wellcome Trust Career Development Award. She started her laboratory in October 2023, focusing on the study of cerebral and choroid plexus organoids to understand brain development. During her postdoc at the MRC-LMB in Cambridge in the Lancaster’s lab, she developed an organoid model of the choroid plexus and cerebrospinal fluid secretion. This work offered insights into how SARS-CoV-2 might affect the brain. Her current research looks at the choroid plexus organoid model to study brain development, CSF biomarkers, and how the blood-CSF-barrier repairs after injury.
Elizabeth Apsley, PhD
Postdoc
Lizzy was awarded her PhD by the University of Oxford, where she worked in the lab of Esther Becker. Her PhD work used organoids to study early cerebellar development and investigate the role of language-associated gene FOXP2 in the human cerebellum. Her research is now focused on studying the maturation of the choroid plexus and its response to acute physical injury.
See Swee Tang, PhD
Postdoc
See Swee obtained his PhD in Bioengineering at Imperial College London. During which, he developed an organ-on-a-chip platform for advanced optical imaging to study the dynamics of mechanosensitive proteins on the cell membrane. At present, he is investigating the effect of chemical insults to the developing choroid plexus and the blood-CSF barrier integrity, using choroid plexus organoid model.
Marian Fernandez-Otero
Research Assistant
Marian is a Research Technician specialised in histology. She previously worked in neurodevelopment labs in Spain, King's College London and Harvard Medical School. Now, she is working on deciphering the early development of the choroid plexus using human tissue and organoid models.
Charles Morris
PhD student
Charlie received his Bachelor’s in Biomedical Sciences and a Master’s Degree in Nanomedicine by research from the University of Manchester under the supervision of Dr Sandra Vranic. He then gained experience as a research support officer at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology within the Lancaster lab. His work focussed on utilising organoid models to ask questions about nanomaterials, stem cell differentiation, and morphogenesis. He is now working on utilising organoid models to understand the effects of psychedelics, specifically psilocin, on the human choroid plexus and cortex.
Kyriaki Sapidou
Research Assistant
Kyriaki has received her Master’s degree in Drug Design from University College London (UCL). During her studies, she investigated the production of amyloid beta in iPSC-derived oligodendrocytes and evaluated the AAV - mediated delivery of a nanobody inhibitor as a strategy to reduce amyloid beta levels.
Alumni
Jessica Kapadia, MSc
Research Assistant