Andre Melnik

Andre was born in Ukraine and moved as a child to Munich, Germany, where he obtained his High School degree. Afterwards he finished his Bachelor's in Physiology and Cell Biology at the University of Salzburg, Austria. Having his Bachelor's degree, Andre moved to Zurich where he graduated from the University of Zurich as Master of Sciences in Molecular and Cellular Biology. For his master's thesis, Andre worked on aspects of communication between the immune system and adult neurogenesis in the Group of Prof. Oliver Ulrich under the supervision of Dr. Susanne Wolf. After the Master's Andre successfully applied for the Molecular Life Science Graduate School Zurich and joined as a PhD student the Lab of Prof. Paola Picotti. Today, Andre is interested in the comparison of cellular responses to aggregation-prone proteins on system-wide level using yeast as a model organism, using discovery as well as targeted mass-spectrometry based proteomics techniques as the major approach. Primarily, he investigates which cellular pathways are affected by the misfolding and aggregation of Aβ42, TDP43, FUS and HTT, proteins involved in different neurodegenerative diseases. The work of Andre will provide a better understanding of how a cell copes with misfolded protein species and gain insight into cytotoxic mechanisms triggered by protein aggregation.