Marcos
Schaan Profes

Dr. Schaan Profes is a neuroscientist whose research focuses on understanding neurodegeneration driven by tau protein aggregation and deregulation, with emphasis on JADE1 as a potential modulator of toxic 4R tau species. His goal is to validate JADE1’s role in tau biology while developing an innovative and robust optogenetic model to study tau aggregation in vitro. He brings expertise in biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology (including CRISPR/Cas9), and genetic models such as conditional knockouts. Trained in Brazil at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul during his BSc in genetics and classical virology, he later moved to Europe and in his MSc at Coimbra University and Janssen Pharmaceutica, he developed an in vitro assay to model tau aggregation. As a PhD student at Université Laval, he demonstrated that autophagy is essential for dopaminergic axon development, employing cutting-edge imaging techniques such as live confocal imaging and super-resolution microscopy. In his first postdoctoral role at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, he explored synapse formation in C. elegans, identifying new neurexin interactors through in vivo proteomics. He is currently expanding his research in experimental neuropathology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. With a multidisciplinary background and strong technical foundation, he is well-positioned to uncover novel mechanisms of tau pathology and investigate JADE1 as a promising therapeutic target for tauopathies.