Stephanie Tullo

Recent studies suggest the alpha-synuclein protein in Lewy bodies may spread in a prion-like manner, contributing to disease pathogenesis in Parkinson's disease and other synucleinopathies. Animal models of alpha-synuclein spreading are best suited to examine in vivo propagation and pathology. These models can then be compared to computational models of alpha-synuclein spread to identify the factors that best predict its spreading throughout the brain. The goal of this work is to predict disease progression and provide a platform for testing therapeutics through the creation of bio-computational models for investigating protein propagation, would can also allow for the investigation of any disease in which protein propagation is a pathogenic factor, as hypothesized with beta-amyloid and tau in Alzheimer's disease and with TDP-43 in ALS and Frontotemporal dementia.

Stephanie Tullo is a PhD candidate at McGill University in the Integrated Program in Neuroscience. Her research focuses on neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, with a focus on modelling the spread of prion-like proteins in vivo and in silico, specifically that of alpha-synuclein. She completed her Masters of Science at McGill University, where she investigated neuroanatomical trajectories as a result of the normative aging process. Stephanie has worked in various domains of research ranging from animal to computational to human work. She took part in the recruitment of participants for various datasets at the Douglas research centre, where she performed phone screenings, MRI scanning and cognitive testing of the participants ranging from healthy controls to patients with mild cognitive impairment as well as patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

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