Andrew Stern
Principal Investigator
Andrew grew up in Ottawa, Canada, and obtained a B.Sc. in microbiology from McGill University. He graduated from the M.D.-Ph.D. program at the University of Pennsylvania, followed by internship at Pennsylvania Hospital, neurology residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital-Massachusetts General Hospital combined program, and fellowship in cognitive and behavioral neurology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Dennis Selkoe, where he studied naturally-occurring Aβ aggregates and their interaction with anti-amyloid antibodies. He spends one afternoon per week seeing patients with memory disorders at the Center for Brain Mind Medicine, with the remainder of his time on the basic science of Alzheimer disease and related neurodegenerative disease. In his spare time, he plays squash (badly) and spends time with his wife Emily and son Noah.
Wen Liu
Senior Research Assistant
Wen has more than three decades of experience in basic science research, including twelve years in Alzheimer disease research. She worked as a research technician in the labs of Paul Allen and then Dominic Walsh at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and she has contributed to more than 15 publications. In her free time she enjoys gardening and playing with her granddaughter.
Anna Francis
Research Assistant
Anna grew up in Weston, CT, and received her B.A. in biology from Oberlin College and Conservatory. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in biomedical science and a career in research. In her free time, she enjoys drawing, painting, reading, and spending time with her dog.
Lily Wickland Shearer
Research Assistant
Lily grew up on a farm in rural Colrain, MA. She completed her bachelor’s degree at Amherst College in May 2023 where she wrote a senior thesis on the role of phosphorylation of protein Partitioning-1. She has always been interested in dementia research and this led her to the Stern Lab in the summer of 2023. She hopes to continue working in neurodegeneration, with her sights set on an MD/PhD. In her free time, Lily enjoys running with friends and family (slowly at distances under 13.1 mi), hiking, pet sitting, singing, and curling up with a good book.
Amirah Anderson
Research Assistant
Amirah joined the Selkoe lab in August of 2020 and splits her time with the Stern lab. She has worked on optimizing biochemical assays to study blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease (e.g. amyloid beta and tau species). Amirah received a dual degree Bachelor’s in Biology and Masters in Neuroscience from Spelman College and Morehouse School of Medicine where she used bioinformatic approaches to detect novel transcripts from RNA-Seq blood profiles to improve diagnosis and prediction of Alzheimer’s Disease. In her future career, she hopes to delve deeper into investigating neurodevelopmental disorders and innovative pediatric interventions as a physician-scientist. Outside of the lab, she enjoys being outdoors (hiking, biking, gardening), getting children excited about science, and practicing capoeira.
Youqi Tao
Postdoctoral Fellow
Youqi grew up in Lanzhou, China, and got his B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from Nanjing University, focusing on developing new chemistry for selective chemical modification of proteins. He obtained a Ph.D. in Biology from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, where he focused on the structural biology of pathological amyloid fibrils in neurodegenerative diseases, and he revealed principles of amyloid-ligand interaction at the atomic level. His long-standing interest is uncovering the complicated nature of amyloid species during their development and during the progress of neurodegenerative diseases. In his free time, he enjoys playing badminton and watching short videos. He is now learning to cook.
Ella Borberg
Postdoctoral Fellow
Ella completed her PhD in chemistry at Tel Aviv University in 2021. Ella is situated in the Walt Lab at the Department of Pathology in Brigham and Women’s Hospital, associated with the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. She is developing a single-molecule seed amplification assay to detect TDP-43 aggregates in patient biofluids, as part of a collaboration between the Stern and Walt labs.
Sarah Smith
Neurology Resident
After growing up in the Boston suburbs, Sarah obtained BA in biology at University of Pennsylvania, followed by MD-PhD in Neuroscience at Washington University in St Louis. Her PhD work studied basic pathogenic mechanisms of ALS in an SOD1 mouse model. She is currently a senior resident in the MGH/BWH neurology residency, and then will be continuing her clinical training as an MGH/BWH neuromuscular fellow. She joined the Stern lab to work on development of sporadic ALS biomarkers, specifically applying seed amplification assays directed at TDP-43 to ALS patient biofluids. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and reading science fiction novels. Sarah is supported by a grant for neurology residents from the Target ALS Foundation.