Prof. Dr. Jens Christian Schwamborn will hold his inaugural lecture on Wednesday, 29 October 2014 at 6 p.m. in the Salle Tavenas, 102a, avenue Pasteur, Luxembourg-Limpertsberg. His topic: Is age-associated neurodegeneration already determined during embryonic development?

Parkinson’s disease is an age-associated progressive neurodegenerative disease. In recent years it has been accepted that Parkinson’s disease is a disorder which is not only characterized by a loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, but also by a deregulation of adult neural stem cells. Degeneration of dopaminergic neurons leads to the well described motor symptoms. At the same time, defects in adult neurogenesis are likely to contribute to non-motor symptoms.

The aim of my research is to understand, model and treat Parkinson’s disease. Stem cells, either neural stem cells or pluripotent stem cells, are in the centre of most of my research approaches. In particular I am interested in the hypothesis that age-associated neurodegeneration might be already determined during embryonic brain development.

In this lecture, I will give a brief introduction to stem cell biology, brain development and Parkinson’s disease. Based on this, I will discuss some research projects that are currently ongoing in my lab at the University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB). Particularly I will focus on approaches that allow us to model Parkinson’s disease in vitro, so called “disease in a dish” approaches as well as new stem cell-based, cell replacement techniques.

Prof. Dr. Jens Christian Schwamborn (born in 1977) studied chemistry at the University of Essen (Germany) and biochemistry at the University of Witten/Herdecke (Germany). In 2005, he received his PhD from the Westphalian Wilhelms-University Münster (Germany). After a postdoctoral stay at the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna (Austria) he established a Junior Research Group at the University Clinic in Münster (Germany). In 2013 he was appointed professor for Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Luxembourg, LCSB.

An introduction will be given by Prof. Dr. Paul Heuschling, Dean of the Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication, and a reception will take place after the inaugural lecture.

© Université du Luxembourg, Michel Brumat