Visiting Graduate Research Trainees


Visiting Graduate Research Trainees

Eva Wachtelaer
Eva is an exchange student from Belgium, performing her master’s thesis in our research group. She currently investigates the role of brain iron deposition in Alzheimer’s disease. She uses Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) methods to relate iron values to the healthy aging brain and AD pathophysiology to improve the understanding of the disease.


Thaís Barbosa Alberti
Ms. Alberti received the ELAP-Scholarship - “Leaders of America Scholarship Program” and joined MCSA between March – September 2018. She is a master student of Biotechnology and Biosciences at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, in Brazil, studying the effect of a nanoencapsulated cannabinoid agonist in neurodegenerative processes. She is developing nanoparticles of this agonist and intends to test it with neuroimaging techniques and experimental models to assess if it diminishes neuroinflammation and clinical signs of the diseases, focusing particularly on Alzheimer’s Disease

Sophie van den Brink, M.Sc. candidate
Sophie is a research master's student in Neuropsychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is currently carrying out her thesis project at the MCSA, which focuses on the contribution of CSF biomarker assessments in the diagnostic process of atypical dementia patients. She is analyzing CSF biomarkers (amyloid and tau) along with neuroimaging, neurological and neuropsychological evaluations that are used to distinguish Alzheimer's disease from other types of dementia. Sophie's aim is to emphasize the importance of CSF biomarker assessments in the clinical practice, which could result in increased diagnostic accuracy for atypical dementia patients.

Gleciane Gontijo de Avelar
Ms. Gontijo de Avelar, Clinical Pharmacist, MSc student in the Graduate Program of Medical Sciences of the University of Brasília (Brazil) was awarded with the scholarship by Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program (ELAP). Following Dr. Pedro Rosa-Neto's guidance at McGill University Research Centre for Studies in Aging, she intends to identify and test pre-selected microRNA-based biomarkers for challenging Alzheimer's Disease, especially in the light of rigorously pre-evaluated patients with the aid of cutting-edge neuroimaging technologies.