Björn Vahsen

I studied medicine at the Georg-August-University Göttingen, including clinical rotations at King’s College London and the University of Zurich. During my medical studies, I was part of the Translational Neurodegeneration group at the Department of Neurology in Göttingen, where I performed comprehensive experimental work on the role of autophagy in axonal degeneration and regeneration in vitro. I then completed an MSc in Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, during which time I joined the Oxford Motor Neuron Disease Centre, investigating the role of a synaptotagmin isoform in neuron-like cells in vitro.

For my DPhil in Clinical Neurosciences, I now aim to study the role of microglia in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis by using a combined cellular and neuropathological approach. My project is performed in collaboration with Sally Cowley at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology and funded by the Clarendon Fund, St John’s College, the MRC-DTP, and the NIHR.