Julia Fuchs

Group Leader - Pi Emerging Team @Collège de France

Paris, FR

In the past 5 years I have set up an independent research team working on an interdisciplinary research project. In our projects, we are focusing on a hitherto unknown pathway potentially implicated in mechanisms leading to neurodegeneration. Our research explores the role and consequences of a deregulation of transposable element (TE) expression at the cellular and molecular level in neurodegenerative diseases (i.e. Alzheimer and Parkinson Disease: Ravel-Godreuil et al, FEBS Letters, 2021; Peze-Heidsieck et al, Front Aging Neurosci, 2021). Our recent results suggest that age-related epigenetic alterations lead to the activation of a particular family of TEs, termed LINE-1, in mouse dopaminergic neurons (Ravel-Godreuil et al, iScience, 2021) and throughout the murine brain and in human post-mortem dopaminergic neurons (https://doi.org/10.1101/20••••••••08), which may causally contribute to the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons through the induction of genomic instability (Blaudin de Thé et al, EMBO J, 2018) and to alterations of nuclear envelope integrity, nucleocytoplasmic transport and chromatin organization (https://doi.org/10.1101/20••••••••79). However, using a novel approach combining atlas-based brain mapping with deep learning algorithms on large-scale pyramidal mouse brain images, we unexpectedly unveil a heterogeneous, neuron-dominant and widespread expression of ORF1p at \"steady-state\", suggesting an impact of LINE-1 protein expression on neuronal physiology. My contribution: fundraising, communication (10 invited seminars; 3 selected talks at national and international conferences), collaborations (ANR-PRC), conceptual, analytical, editorial, through supervision.Institutional contributions: Reviewing for national and international Research Agencies and Institutions, Consulting, Representative at the CIRB Council, Founding member of the CIRB “green committee”, Scientific Outreach.

Sorbonne University

HDR - habilitation to direct research, Neuroscience

University of Tübingen

PhD in Neuroscience, Neuroscience

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Pre-doctoral fellowship, Medicine/ Research

University of Göttingen Medical School

Doctor of Medicine (MD), Medicine