Kayja Collett, Neuroscience Undergraduate Student
Kayja is a junior undergraduate student pursuing the neuroscience pre-medical track at Georgia State. Her project is focused studying neurovasculature changes in neurodegenerative disorders, such as Gordon Holmes syndrome. Link
Zachary (Zack) Allen, Research Associate I
After almost ten years as a commercial fisherman and boat captain in Virginia Beach, VA., Zack jumped ship to pursue his bachelor’s degree at Georgia State. As a recent graduate of GSU’s Neuroscience Institute, Zack remains passionate about research. While his passion is mostly related to cognitive and behavioral modalities, all fields of neuroscience are of interest to him. Zack is currently taking time to expand his experience and knowledge in the laboratory setting before continuing on to graduate school to pursue his Ph.D. While not in the lab, Zack likes to chase big waves as an avid surfer. Link
Bianca Parra, Neuroscience Institute Graduate Student
Bianca is a first year Ph.D. student in the Neuroscience Institute. Bianca's project is focused on optimizing methods to image neural activity in awake behaving animals while they are performing spatial and reversal learning tasks. Link
Delance Wright, Neuroscience Undergraduate Student
Delance is pursuing his masters degree in the Neuroscience Institute. He is interested in the role of protein ubiquitination plays in neurodegenerative disorders. He is currently using the CrispR-Cas9 system in cultured cells to alter genes that are known to be mutated in the rare disorder, Gordon Holmes syndrome.
Vishrut Thaker, Neuroscience Undergraduate Student
Vishrut is a senior undergraduate student pursuing the neuroscience pre-medical track at Georgia State. Vishrut joined the lab in his junior year and assisted Dr. Dina Yakout on her thesis project related to Tau by analyzing dendritic spine density and intensity. Now, Vishrut is working on his honors thesis project in collaboration with the Feresin Lab by researching the endothelial function and cognitive performance of clinical trial patients with hypertension on a blueberry powder diet. Vishrut plans to apply to medical school and is interested in studying cardiovascular and neurological diseases. Link
Ruy Tobar Mosqueira, Postbac
Ruy received his BS in Neuroscience from GSU in summer 2023. He is currently analyzing how disruptions in protein ubiquitination impacts spatial behaviors in adulthood and in aging. Link
Dr. Angela Mabb, Principal Investigator
Angela "Angie" Mabb earned her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2007 in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology. She then became a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Neurobiology Department at Duke University in the laboratory of Dr. Michael D. Ehlers. From there, she continued her postdoctoral training in the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in the laboratories of Dr. Ben Philpot and Dr. Mark Zylka. Angela's background is strongly rooted in Molecular Biology. The goal of her lab is to marry modern molecular biology techniques with Neuroscience. The main focus of her lab is to study how ubiquitin-dependent pathways mediate cognition and how deficiencies in these pathways cause neurological disease.
Dhanya Pyaram, Neuroscience Institute Graduate Student
Dhanya is a second year Neuroscience Ph.D. student whose project is focused on the role of protein ubiquitination in the regulation of microglia function. Link
Welcome to the Mabb Lab!
Wei Wei, Postdoctoral Fellow
Wei Wei received her Ph.D. degree in Immunology from South Medical University, China in 2013 where her project was focused on dysfunctional presynaptic regulation of striatal medium spiny neurons in mouse models of Parkinson’s disease. She then became a Postdoctoral Fellow in the department of Physiology at the University of Tennessee working on neural mechanisms driving food intake in the obese. She was particularly focused on how diet and body weight affect excitability of neuron populations responsible for food intake. With Dr. Mabb, she integrates electrophysiology, optogenetic, and molecular biology techniques to understand pathways associated with neurological dysfunction.