Recent Updates

Post doctoral fellows Ghazaleh Eskandari-Sedighi and Jean Paul Chadarevian attend the 2025 Alzheimer’s Disease: Multimodal Approaches to Mechanisms and Therapeutic Targets. In attendance were former MBJ lab members Emma Danhesh and Dr. Christel Claes. During the Functional Genomics and Alzheimer’s Disease session led by Dr. Celeste Karch, Dr. Ghazaleh presented “A Chimeric Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease With Combined Amyloid and Tau Pathologies to Study Protective Human Microglia Responses in the Context of Disease“. Session included discussions on Systems Biology and Alzheimer’s Disease, Neuroimaging and Alzheimer’s Disease Models and Endophenotypes, AI and Machine Learning in AD, Epigenetics and Multi-Omics, Population and Sex Differences in Alzheimer’s Disease, and Therapeutic Approaches. Congratulations to chairs, Dr. Olivier Lichtarge and Dr. Towfique Raj, on an outstanding conference!

The Blurton-Jones lab celebrates and bids farewell to our Undergraduate Technician, Joia, as she begins the next chapter of her scientific studies as a graduate student at Harvard University.

Dr. Jean Paul Chadarevian presents “Engineering iPSC-derived Microglia for Immune Cell-based Therapies for Neurological Disorders” at the ISSCR 2025 Annual Meeting held in Hong Kong from 11-14 June 2025. His session Expanding Therapeutics through Stem Cells and Reprogramming was chaired by Dr. Athanasia D. Panopoulos of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and included concurrent talks from Dr. Maria Pia Cosma, Professor at the Centre for Genomic Regulation, and Dr. Pentao Liu, Professor of the University of Hong Kong.

The Guojun Bu Laboratory also hosted Dr. Chadarevian at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

The University of California, Irvine Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND) is proud to announce that postdoctoral fellow Jean Paul Chadarevian, PhD, has been awarded a prestigious grant from the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation. The three-year, $225,000 award will support Dr. Chadarevian’s innovative research into the role of peripheral immune cells in the development and progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Working in the laboratory of Dr. Mathew Blurton-Jones, Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at UCI, Dr. Chadarevian will investigate how immune cells that originate outside the brain infiltrate it and contribute to the disease’s pathology.

Read more here.

Talented UCI MIND Trainee awarded Research Fellowship

Ghazaleh Eskandar-Sedighi, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow, supervised by Mathew Blurton-Jones, PhD, professor of Neurobiology and Behavior in the Charlie Dunlop School of Biological Sciences. Dr. Eskander-Sedighi was recently awarded a prestigious Postdoctoral Fellowship in Alzheimer’s disease research from the BrightFocus Foundation. Ghazeleh’s research focuses on leveraging human stem cell-derived microglia and chimeric animal models to investigate protective microglial responses in the context of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Her BrightFocus Foundation project specifically aims to take advantage of novel, multi-faceted stem cell and chimeric mouse models to study the impact of the protective microglial ApoE3 Christchurch mutation on disease pathogenesis in a novel mouse model of AD with combined amyloid and tau pathologies. Considering the significant advancements in the field of microglia-based therapeutics, the results from this 2-year, $200,000 fellowship could help the field clarify the potential therapeutic role of protective variants like APOE Christchurch against AD. Congratulations Ghazeleh!

Postdoctoral fellows Ghazaleh Eskandari-Sedighi and Jean Paul Chadarevian join Graduate Student Zahara Keulen at the 2025 Southern California Alzheimer’s Disease Centers Research Symposium hosted at the Arnold & Mabel Beckman Center.

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Undergraduates Joia Capocchi and Alan Mai present “Human microglia transplantation to prevent frontotemporal dementia” at the 2025 UC Irvine Undergraduate Research Symposium hosted by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. Congratulations on your poster and outstanding contributions!

Dr. Jean Paul Chadarevian was awarded the 2025 Tom Angell Fellowship Award by the Office of Inclusive Excellence’s Mentoring for Achievement and Excellence. This fellowship is intended to honor Tom Angell’s contributions as the UCI Graduate Counselor to graduate student wellness and retention and signifies outstanding mentorship by going above and beyond their normal duties to create new opportunities. Congratulations, Jean Paul!