People

Lisa Topolnik, PhD

Lisa is our scientific leader and the soul of the laboratory. She holds a tenure-track position in Biophotonics at the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Bioinformatics at Université Laval. She graduated from the Odessa National University in the field of Human and Animal Physiology and received her PhD in the field of Neurobiology from the Bogomoletz Institute of Physiology (2000) in Ukraine. She then moved to Canada to pursue postdoctoral training, first, with the group of Dr. Mircea Steriade at Université Laval and, second, with Dr. Jean-Claude Lacaille at Université de Montréal. In 2007, she moved back to Université Laval and received the University Faculty Award for Women from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to develop her research program.

Marie-Andrée Bellavance, PhD student in Neurobiology

Marie-Andrée joined the lab in 2009. She is interested in the cellular mechanisms of inhibition that regulate the information processing in the first relay station of the vibrissal system, the trigeminal complex. Currently, she is investigating the functional organisation of inhibitory interneurons in the interpolaris nucleus. Marie-Andrée is co-directed by Dr. Martin Deschenes.

Olivier Camiré, MSc student in Neurobiology

Olivier joined our lab in September 2010, first, as an undergraduate and then as a master student. His research project is to investigate the calcium fluctuations in dendrites of hippocampal interneurons. He becomes an expert in two-photon Ca2+ imaging in combination with patch clamp recordings in hippocampal slices in vitro.

Simon Chamberland, PhD student in Neurobiology

Simon is in the lab since summer 2008. During his MSc studies he used two-photon Ca2+ imaging technique to investigate how distinct dendritic Ca2+ mechanisms control plasticity at interneuron inhibitory synapses. He is now concentrating on hippocampal interneuron-specific interneurons.

Christopher Lacharité Mueller, MSc in Biophotonics

Chris joined the lab in January, 2010. He uses a variety of optical techniques (two-photon photostimulation by glutamate uncaging; Channelrhodopsine-assisted circuit mapping) in combination with whole-cell patch recordings to investigate the functional organisation of connected inhibitory circuits in the hippocampus.

Elise Magnin, Undergraduate student

Elise joined the lab in September, 2011. Her goal is to get the first research experience in neurobiology and biochemistry. She is going to learn the basics of immunohystochemistry, confocal microscopy and animal models of temporal lobe epilepsy.

Charleen Salesse, PhD student in Neurobiology

Charleen is in the lab since summer 2008. After completing her MSc, she continued as a research assistant. She is doing all molecular and genotyping work in the lab and is interested in the organization of inhibitory synapses onto interneurons. Starting from May 2011, Charleen is a PhD student. Her research project is focusing on the mechanisms of long-term plasticity at inhibitory synapses onto interneurons.

Dimitry Topolnik, Staff scientist

Dimitry is in the lab since its beginning, in 2007. He is in charge of all technical issues in the lab. He is also doing Neurolucida reconstructions of interneurons and patch clamp experiments in animal model of temporal lobe epilepsy.